In the Beginning… We Needed A House (Part 1)

Ah, thanks so much for joining us! So I thought it best to start in the beginning, way back in mid-2015 when we set-out to find the home of our dreams! While we had been living in Colorado since December of 2010, we had only been renting and while we were very fortunate to live in two amazing rental homes over the course of 4 1/2 years, we were desperately itching to buy our own home again.

Rent First, Buy Later

But that’s not quite the beginning,  I really should back-up and talk about why we had to rent homes in Colorado initially. That discussion is a difficult one, even somewhat embarrassing. But I think it’s important to share.  We had a great house in California that we bought in 2005 and it was everything we wanted at the time (that’s it at the top of the page.) It was brand new and we had chosen all of the finishes, had a fantastic pool and spa put into the backyard, had room for our many “toys” and it was perfect for us. Well, at least we thought it was perfect until the housing bubble burst a few years later! Before we knew it, a huge chunk of our equity was gone and we were completely underwater, literally!

When we purchased the home, we had no idea that so many of our neighbors had been sold home loans they couldn’t afford. And while the news headlines were filled with stories of people like all of those neighbors being bamboozled by predatory lenders, there wasn’t any mention of people like us. People who could afford their home, had resisted some really ridiculous loan offers, and put down a down payment well over 20% . People who also lost so much. We felt just as bamboozled by our lender because they were the ones approving all of those crazy loans. They knew it wasn’t right but we had no clue what was going to happen to us financially in just a few short years.

Tough Decision

By early 2010, we knew that we would be moving but had no idea what we were going to do with a house we couldn’t sell? We couldn’t even rent it out for the cost of our monthly mortgage. Short sale and bank-owned homes in our neighborhood were sitting empty for years (one had even been turned into a meth lab!) It was a really difficult time in our lives but with very heavy hearts, we accepted the fact that we really didn’t have any options. Our lender would not work with us on a solution while we were current on our payments and even after more than 2 years of not making a payment, they wouldn’t work with us, despite our numerous calls and pleas for help. They never even filed a Notice of Default to initiate a foreclosure, which we were reluctantly prepared for. It was simply crazy and we were beginning to wonder if we would ever be able to get rid of this house!

Not Going To Hold Our Breath

After nearly two years in Colorado, we were randomly contacted by someone in California saying that she wanted to buy our house. She was in real estate, the house was perfect for her son, and she was very confident in her abilities to get a short sale approved by our lender. We were very skeptical but were beginning to gain a bit of hope. Then lo and behold, after just a couple of months, she did it. Not only did she get the short sale approved, our lender lowered the price from what the buyer had offered and even paid us $5000 at closing! What? How does that even happen? In the end, we sold the house for nearly $300,000 less than what we paid for it. Sigh…it was a bittersweet moment for sure.

Renting Wasn’t So Bad!

But what was a very painful experience actually helped us as we settled into Colorado living. The time spent having to rent homes (while we waited to once again be qualified to purchase a home) afforded us the opportunity to really figure out where we ultimately wanted to buy a home. Our first home was located in South Aurora and it was a beautiful little area and neighborhood. It was a lovely home that had never been rented out before and it had a wonderful outdoor mall just down the street with plenty of amenities all around us. The house was surrounded by large Ponderosa Pines and it just felt like Colorado!

When the owners decided to move back into the home after 2 years, we were on the hunt again for a new place. We decided to look for something more remote with property to test out a different lifestyle. And we found a beauty of a place on 20 acres south-east of Denver in Franktown. Another house that had never been a rented and it sat on top of a hill with a full view of the entire front range. Another new beginning, another step closer to buying our own home!

Killer Views!

The view of the Rockies from the backside of the house was breathtaking! And while we loved being there, by early 2015, the owners had decided to sell the house. We weren’t quite where we needed to be to purchase, so it was time to make another move. So we ended up moving into an apartment for what we thought would be just a few months (emphasis on “thought”).

Sorry, that was a lot to cover I know, but we want to share all of our story. Going through what we did with our home in California was a touchy situation. But we know we weren’t the only ones that went through something like that and if anyone else reads this that had a similar thing happen in their life, I hope they will know they aren’t alone! Life isn’t always what we plan for but there’s always hope and there’s always a reason! And we can look back now and thank God because He knew all along where we were headed!

So with that, we’re ready to start talking about how we came upon our Young Victorian in the mountains and what ended up being a pretty long and painful journey to making her ours. We’ll get into those details in Part 2 of “In the Beginning…”! Hope you’ll keep reading along! {Shelley}