House Hunting

As you probably know, we are moving. We have lived in our current city 2 weeks shy of 2 years. It is a big city with all sorts of good places to eat, wonderful parks, stores with imported products, etc. But, in August, we will move out about 2 hours away to more of a rural area.

We have begun preparing for the move by house hunting. House hunting here is different than in the USA. We went about a month ago to try and familiarize ourselves with the town, see which locations were suitable. and possibly look at a few examples and floor plans. We came home having 2 good possibilities of where we wanted to live. We weren't able to see any apartments in these complexes becasue there isn't an office to go to, it is done more like condos. You find an owner than work with them to see their home, etc. The catch? Finding an owner.

Last week we went back, determined to find phone numbers and actually see some apartments. Like I said, there are 2 areas we could live. The first one is on the outskirts of town in the "new" area. There is a large basketball court and park inside this one (Hudson really likes this one) with lots of wonderful views of mountains all around. We weren't able to see inside any apartments, but we did obtain the phone numbers of two owners who are wanting to rent. We have scheduled a time to go back tomorrow to see the insides (finally).

The second area is in the "city center" of our new city. We like this because there is a lot of activity and people to meet, etc. There is one newer complex with suitable apartments. Last time we saw that most of the apartments are 2 bedroom, with some 3 bedroom and a few 4 bedroom. We would love to have a 4 bedroom because we would like to make one room a classroom as we will begin homeschooling once we move out. However, the 4 bedrooms are all on the top floor (no elevator) of only a few buildings. We haven't ever found any rental signs, or properties available in this complex, but we have hope!

So, last week, we made up our minds to just start knocking on doors and see if anyone wanted to rent their apartment to us. I know this sounds a little crazy, but crazy happens here. We walked up to the top floor and found an empty apartment that hadn't been finished yet, just concrete on the inside. We were able to see the floor plan and really liked the apartment even more! When the owner came in, we asked if he would rent it to us, he said "no" he was building it to live in.

So, we went to the next building, and found 2 finished apartments with people living in them. The lady in the first one invited us in and showed us all around her house, invited us to stay and eat lunch and visit for a while. Funny, huh? We declined, thanked her profusely for letting us barge in on her, then asked her if they wanted to rent their apartment to us, she said no. The neighbor across the hall didn't want to rent to us either. We walked away laughing at the thought of knocking on someone's door in America and asking to see their house because we wanted to rent it.....don't think we would be invited to stay for lunch, do you?

The third building we went in, the kids and I decided to let Rob go alone. 10 minutes later he called me and said he had found a man who owned 5 or 6 apartments in this complex, 2 of which were exactly what we were looking for......and he wanted to rent them out. He took us to see one of them and told us we could rent it. :) It is not finished inside, so we could pick how we wanted to finish it out and it would be ready about the time we are planning to move. We are going to look at it again tomorrow and "talk price".

The house hunting continues tomorrow! We are all excited to go back out and try again. We have been relflecting lately on our 2 year mark of living here, which is coming up shortly. It is really amazing to us how far we have come with our language that we can barge in on people, find apartments, negotiate price and size, and all that comes with moving and understanding a new area. I guess after living here 2 years and going to class every day, we shoudn't be shocked, but we have definitely come a long way!