We Made an Offer!!!

The Salgado household is so excited!!! We just made an offer on a brand new house and we are praying that the offer will be accepted. We have been waiting and praying for so many, many years. We have somewhat given up owning a house because the prices were unbelievably unaffordable. But now, there are so many new and used houses in the market at unbelievably affordable prices. This abundance has forced some builders to offer crazy incentives to get rid of their inventory. And they are focusing their marketing to first time home buyers like us.

Now, we could have been easily sucked into the house buying frenzy at the time when the property prices were so high. If we have done so, we probably would have been included in the statistics on foreclosures. We have friends who managed to buy houses during that time and to be honest, I felt a tinge of envy. I kept thinking I must be doing something wrong because if they can afford it, why can't I. And I would do computations over and over and it just didn't make sense. And the more Weiwei and I would talked about it, the more it didn't make sense. Looking back now, there was really somebody else with us whenever we talk about buying a house. It was God voicing out His opinion in a subtle way and if I can paraphrase Him, He was probably telling us..."it's not time yet.. just hang in there... I already have the right place and time for you to match what you need...just remember that I will give you what you need and it may not be what you want but it will definitely be what you need...not only for the two of you but also for Cheryl and Abby... and you will feel so good and at peace when that time comes..".

And here we are now, in a period when it seems like a great time to buy. And feeling really good and at peace with the offer that we just made. So I am hoping that this is it! Here are some tidbits about the property we are interested in.

First of all, it is a brand new house that is already ready for move-in and with so many upgrades in place. WE LOVE THE UPGRADES!! We probably would have had a hard time figuring out what to upgrade if we have to start from nothing. Weiwei just couldn't contain herself when we first saw the place. She was like a kid in a candy store. Like I said, there is an abundance of properties and this puts us in a position to negotiate a price. So we offered something that is 40K less than the asking price plus some freebies like refrigerator and backyard landscaping. We felt comfortable with the offer. Some people might say, we could have been more aggresive. But we didn't want to get something by exploiting somebody else's situation. We wouldn't feel at peace with it. And I have to tell you...these properties were going as high as $600-$700K before. And now it has been cut to almost half of that. Another incentive was that the closing costs will be paid for if our loan is approved by the lender. So, it's really a great deal already from our point of view.

Secondly...LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!. This sweetens the pot even more!! The property is on a corner lot facing a playground so we didn't really need a big background because the kids can literally just cross the street and they're in the playground. It's like having a huge background and you don't have to pay for maintenance. And because it's on a corner lot and in front of a playground, we wouldn't have any problems with visitor parking. There's tons of parking all over the place so we can open up our house to visitors which we have been dying to do for a long time. We like having people over and we can't do that now because of the difficult parking situation in our current place. Another plus of having a corner lot is that the amount of natural light that comes in is just awesome. I don't know about you but I love sunshine and living in a house where you constantly need to have the lights on is not my cup of tea and it can be depressing sometimes. Another huge plus is the location of our community. It is right beside a huge commercial complex that is being developed which will house well-known retail stores (like Anne Klein, Victoria Secret and many more) and restaurants (like PF Changs). There is also a huge movie theater complex which is almost done. The estimated opening date for the whole complex is October-November of this year.

So we are really excited about it!!! And we are really really hoping that this is what God has planned for us. If this is not it... can you imagine how much more excited we would feel when we finally find what He has in store for us. Oh my goodness!!! God rocks man!!!

So stay tuned....and please, please, please pray for us...