Blog: We Bought a New House
Menu
We Bought a New House - Sunday, July 14, 2024
This is going to sound silly to everyone (the wife included), but since I do a lot of Yelping, I also like to check in on Yelp for every place that I visit. Partly to rack up dukedoms (awarded to the person with the most check-ins to a place within a certain period of time), and partly to keep track of where I've been and how many times I've been there.
Upon moving away from the Bay Area, I collected the stats on my total check-ins to the places we've visited most frequently. They kind of provide a high-level snapshot of where we've been the most during the past 12 years. They are as follows:
Church:
CCIC: 616
Cities:
City of Mountain View: 1,839 (I checked in basically every day I went to the office)
City of Santa Clara: 639
City of Sunnyvale: 440
City of Cupertino: 68
Recreation and fitness:
Central Park: 445
San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail: 191
Rancho San Antonio: 105
UFC Gym: 53
Monte Bello OSP: 33
Mission Peak: 28
Restaurants:
Mediterranean Grill House: 99
El Pollo Loco: 43
Yiassoo: 30
Other commercial:
Mariposa Shopping Center: 188
Santa Clara Town Centre: 154
CVS: 115
Chase: 109
Sprouts: 95
Dollar Tree: 65
Safeway: 62
Home Depot Santa Clara: 50
Home Depot Sunnyvale: 35
It's only been 10 days since we left the Bay Area, but we're already starting to adjust to life down here in SoCal. We of course miss our friends and our old church, but hopefully absence will make the heart grow fonder and we'll keep in touch and have a sweet time with people when we visit.
We drove down July 4 and stayed a couple nights with my parents and a couple nights with Priscilla's parents. We then stayed 5 nights at the Bella Capri Inn in Old Town Camarillo, and now we're in an Airbnb in Santa Rosa Valley for a week, and then finally we'll be in another Airbnb in Camarillo Heights for 1.5 weeks. The idea was to be in town so that we could look at houses, but we're actually closing on a house in two days!
We liked the house in the west part of Camarillo Heights that I'd previously mentioned. We had an offer in the pipeline before our move, but the sellers wanted us to see the place in person to verify that we actually liked it. So we saw the place the day after our move and submitted a stronger offer that day (same price but even faster close), and the sellers accepted it the next day. They interestingly had no other offers. Our agent said that the market had slowed down, and it also helped us that the house was shown for just one weekend, with the next weekend being a holiday weekend. And another thing that probably helped was that the house was in a price valley - higher than most other houses here but lower than the really expensive houses that people with a lot of money can afford. But the market is picking up again now, so we bought at just the right time. We're grateful for God's providence, for our amazing agent who'd been sending us listings for nearly two months and finally found this place when it was off market, and for having enough funds from selling our Bay Area house to make a cash offer.
This new house basically checks all of our boxes except for walkability - there's a Ralphs a mile away but nothing else within reasonable walking distance. It's a single story house and is over 2,700 square feet, which will be ideal if we ever have parents living with us. The lack of stairs will be ideal in terms of mobility, for them as well as likely for us someday. Priscilla has her big kitchen and I have my gym room - the one bedroom that's on a slab foundation; the rest of the house is on a raised foundation. There are 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and also a 2-car garage. I wish the garage was slightly wider; one side of it has some cabinets that protrude a little into the space behind the garage door, and I think we can fit two cars and a couple bikes in there, but it's going to be a squeeze. Other than the garage, there's a lot of space everywhere since it's also a corner lot. The place has been kept pretty well and the backyard is nice. The plants are all on drip irrigation, and the backyard features a large patio, a patio cover, and a hot tub. I really like that the backyard is completely private, unlike most other houses that we've seen that have a neighboring house with a view into the backyard. Priscilla is planning to spend more time there compared to the backyard at our previous house.
God really paved the way for us to get this house. We weren't crazy about it due to the location, so we were committed to offering $45k under the asking price and not going above that. Our reasoning was that if it was God's will for us to have this place, then we would get it. And sure enough we did, and without anyone else bidding. Our hope is that we honor Him with this house and everything else that we've been given.
And now that the question of where we're going to live has been settled, we now need to find a good church to call home. Last Sunday we visited Priscilla's old church in Woodland Hills, and today we visited a church in Thousand Oaks that would be 18 minutes from our house. We talked with a few people today and they were very welcoming. And one couple and another guy also live in Camarillo! We'll probably check out a local Camarillo church next week. I think these are all good churches and great people, so it might be a difficult decision. But we trust that God will lead us to where He has planned, like He's done for everything else thus far.
Upon moving away from the Bay Area, I collected the stats on my total check-ins to the places we've visited most frequently. They kind of provide a high-level snapshot of where we've been the most during the past 12 years. They are as follows:
Church:
CCIC: 616
Cities:
City of Mountain View: 1,839 (I checked in basically every day I went to the office)
City of Santa Clara: 639
City of Sunnyvale: 440
City of Cupertino: 68
Recreation and fitness:
Central Park: 445
San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail: 191
Rancho San Antonio: 105
UFC Gym: 53
Monte Bello OSP: 33
Mission Peak: 28
Restaurants:
Mediterranean Grill House: 99
El Pollo Loco: 43
Yiassoo: 30
Other commercial:
Mariposa Shopping Center: 188
Santa Clara Town Centre: 154
CVS: 115
Chase: 109
Sprouts: 95
Dollar Tree: 65
Safeway: 62
Home Depot Santa Clara: 50
Home Depot Sunnyvale: 35
It's only been 10 days since we left the Bay Area, but we're already starting to adjust to life down here in SoCal. We of course miss our friends and our old church, but hopefully absence will make the heart grow fonder and we'll keep in touch and have a sweet time with people when we visit.
We drove down July 4 and stayed a couple nights with my parents and a couple nights with Priscilla's parents. We then stayed 5 nights at the Bella Capri Inn in Old Town Camarillo, and now we're in an Airbnb in Santa Rosa Valley for a week, and then finally we'll be in another Airbnb in Camarillo Heights for 1.5 weeks. The idea was to be in town so that we could look at houses, but we're actually closing on a house in two days!
We liked the house in the west part of Camarillo Heights that I'd previously mentioned. We had an offer in the pipeline before our move, but the sellers wanted us to see the place in person to verify that we actually liked it. So we saw the place the day after our move and submitted a stronger offer that day (same price but even faster close), and the sellers accepted it the next day. They interestingly had no other offers. Our agent said that the market had slowed down, and it also helped us that the house was shown for just one weekend, with the next weekend being a holiday weekend. And another thing that probably helped was that the house was in a price valley - higher than most other houses here but lower than the really expensive houses that people with a lot of money can afford. But the market is picking up again now, so we bought at just the right time. We're grateful for God's providence, for our amazing agent who'd been sending us listings for nearly two months and finally found this place when it was off market, and for having enough funds from selling our Bay Area house to make a cash offer.
This new house basically checks all of our boxes except for walkability - there's a Ralphs a mile away but nothing else within reasonable walking distance. It's a single story house and is over 2,700 square feet, which will be ideal if we ever have parents living with us. The lack of stairs will be ideal in terms of mobility, for them as well as likely for us someday. Priscilla has her big kitchen and I have my gym room - the one bedroom that's on a slab foundation; the rest of the house is on a raised foundation. There are 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and also a 2-car garage. I wish the garage was slightly wider; one side of it has some cabinets that protrude a little into the space behind the garage door, and I think we can fit two cars and a couple bikes in there, but it's going to be a squeeze. Other than the garage, there's a lot of space everywhere since it's also a corner lot. The place has been kept pretty well and the backyard is nice. The plants are all on drip irrigation, and the backyard features a large patio, a patio cover, and a hot tub. I really like that the backyard is completely private, unlike most other houses that we've seen that have a neighboring house with a view into the backyard. Priscilla is planning to spend more time there compared to the backyard at our previous house.
God really paved the way for us to get this house. We weren't crazy about it due to the location, so we were committed to offering $45k under the asking price and not going above that. Our reasoning was that if it was God's will for us to have this place, then we would get it. And sure enough we did, and without anyone else bidding. Our hope is that we honor Him with this house and everything else that we've been given.
And now that the question of where we're going to live has been settled, we now need to find a good church to call home. Last Sunday we visited Priscilla's old church in Woodland Hills, and today we visited a church in Thousand Oaks that would be 18 minutes from our house. We talked with a few people today and they were very welcoming. And one couple and another guy also live in Camarillo! We'll probably check out a local Camarillo church next week. I think these are all good churches and great people, so it might be a difficult decision. But we trust that God will lead us to where He has planned, like He's done for everything else thus far.