As y’all may remember from my other recent PCS post,
HERE, we are months from heading back to Fort Bragg, NC.
We are months from starting ALL OVER again.
Okay, I’m being a little melodramatic. I mean, we aren’t starting ALL over again. We did live there before.
FOR 12 YEARS.
So I mean, we have that going for us. BUT we did sell our home. So we’ve been in the process of finding a new home. Of course, we know the area and we are using the same trustworthy realtor that sold our home to find us a new home.
But shit y’all, shopping for a home across the country BLOWS!
We are using the app
ZILLOW to look through homes. We did the same thing when we moved to Fort Bliss, Texas to find our rental home. It’s a great app - if the sellers’ realtor spends the extra moola to have a professional take pics of their home! I mean - that’s really how we’ve decided in the past where we were going to live in El Paso because when you’re deciding between a home that has “meh” pictures and a home that has outstanding photos detailing all the good in the home - of course you’re going to pick the better photographed home!
I guess I’m close to this matter anyway, being a photographer myself and having friends who photograph homes for a living. But I mean, come on guys! If you’re selling/renting a home and your realtor/home manager doesn’t hire a professional photographer - find yourself another realtor.
Okay, off my soapbox - main point of this post is that trusting the realtor you’re working with is crucial. Our realtor,
Amethyst, has walked us through every process. And lemme tell ya ... we've had a lot of dumb questions. She’s a military spouse as well and understands our struggles and the current market. Not to mention, has a great network of people around Fayetteville that take care of her clients. We felt it when we were sellers and now feeling it again as buyers.
Yes, this is a little plug for her but also a little lesson in PCSing and buying a new home. Granted, we've only sold one house and in the process of buying our second one. I know others have WAY more experience at this. But I have heard some horrid stories about not being able to find housing once getting into town - both on post or off. (At any installation - no one specifically). Large families staying in hotels for weeks upon months...animals being kenneled for long periods because temporary housing wouldn’t allow etc.
I knew that I wanted to come to a home the second we got in town. That's what we did coming to El Paso, that's what I wanted to do again. We spent 5 days in a hotel in Fayetteville because we had sold our home but we couldn't leave for a few days with our three pets (our children were luckily with grandparents) when we were coming to El Paso - and it was cramped and not fun. Could you imagine a family of 5 with two (our cat died while in Texas) animals in a hotel?!?!
No thank you.
Using Zillow, we’ve been able to browse many houses in the area(s) we preferred and bid on one - unfortunately as perfect as it was, we lost the bid. Like it was perfect y’all. Lol.
It was disappointing for obvious reasons but also because our realtor was amazing in setting up quick house tours for us and videoing her walk thru. Like - how amazing is that?! She took the time to walk thru the homes for us and not only give her opinion of the house but to video it for us so we could see the state of it right at the moment. Giving today’s technology - this is crucial. Again, trusting your realtor and knowing he/she will work for you to ensure you get what you want is CRUCIAL!
But we got back in and searched newly released homes and bid on another - after much anxiety. We are currently under contract for it - YAY!!! So fingers crossed everything goes well and we will be homeowners once more.
I’m excited to be able to have an address to forward mail, to change billing info to, to fill out in school applications, to make cute mailing stamps with, and all the other change of address things that need to happen.
Another tip I suggest is having someone you trust who lives in the city (if you have that luxury) to set up an appointment to walk thru the home as well. I have a friend here who had her sister walk thru a home before they put an offer in. I will probably try to fly out to walk thru the home before closing BUT if I can't, I'll be sweet talking some of my friends out there to help a sister out!
VA Loans ... I'm not the subject matter expert here. But all I can tell you a this moment is, your realtor SHOULD be able to dumb down the process to get you to the right lender to get everything settled. You shouldn't have to do anything except submit the proper paperwork for your credit to be scanned and wait for a lender to accept. Running credit is always scary ... at least it is to me and I have fairly good credit. I always wonder what the lender is thinking when they see bank accounts cross by and they're like ... "that's ALL they have in savings?" or "They think they can buy a $200K house on that income?" haha! I'd love to be a fly on the wall.
Put into considerations as well, even though the house we are under contract for isn't exactly what we wanted, it is pretty damn near close. AND we kept telling ourselves - it's not our forever home. I think military families ... and families that move a lot in general for work or other reasons - think this often. I mean, you just need a place to live in and tolerate for the time you're going to be working at said location. You want to be comfy, you want to have luxury, and you don't want to hate the home you're living in for 2-5 years.
I believe looking for a home that isn't your forever home is much easier. I already pity the realtor who is going to help us find/build our forever home ... wherever that may be. (We still haven't figured out where we want to retire .... LOL ) I'm a picky so-and-so and my husband requires certain amenities and well ... we want a diamond studded mansion on a Ramen dinner budget.
Happy PCS season ya'll and here's to finding the home you're dreaming of for this adventure.
