The house hunt may be over!
So after the disappointment with the short sale and the bank owned and the regular sale in the south bay that was over budget we decided to look further afield to see what we could get within a reasonable commute.
We looked at houses out by the our friends place in Manteca and ridiculously we could buy a huge house for half the amount in the south bay, but Jasper would have an hour and a half commute each way and we’d have to cope with 45+ degrees heat in the summer. Neither of which appealed.
We then took a look at houses for sale in the Los Gatos and Santa Cruz mountains to the south. We discovered there were quite a few houses we could afford, and a lot that we could easily afford. The problem with the cheap ones is that the commute would be similar to Manteca but down long windy narrow mountain roads. So we needed to look at any in our budget that were a decent distance from the 17.
We found two houses which were interesting, one was about 55 minutes commute to work without traffic, it had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a lovely living space, but it was on a very small 4,000 sqf plot with views in to the neighbours houses. The idea of living in the mountains is to feel relatively remote and having views of the redwoods or if you’re lucky far reaching view over the mountains. So that house was also ruled out.
The 2nd house however looked very cool from the photos and it had an open house on a Sunday afternoon, so we thought we should drive out and take a look. We met one of the owners and the agent and the owners lovely dog and took the tour. The house was lovely and we both thought it was much more ‘us’ than any of the bog standard bungalows we have been looking at nearer the bay.
We decided to ask for more information from the agent the following week and did a practice run on the commute. At peak rush hour it was 45 minutes door to door. Jasper spoke to his boss to see if his hours could be more flexible and she agreed. So we made an appointment for our realtors to come with us to view the house a second time.
We had been tossing up between putting an offer in on the mountain house and a bungalow in Santa Clara, so wanted to take a thorough look around to see if the commute would really be worth it to live there.
We spent about 40 minutes at the house chatting with the owners and getting all the information we needed. It was raining for both of our viewings and yet both times we loved it. And if you love a place when it’s all dark, wet and grey outside then imagine how amazing it must be in the sunshine! 
The current owners are lovely people and have obviously put a lot of love in to the house.
So we had a think over the weekend and decided to put in an offer, this was countered the following day and after a bit of negotiation we reached a happy figure for all of us. We signed the paperwork this evening and now have 14 days to get inspections done. Our only big concern on the house is that there may be some big bills for section one repair work, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. As long as there isn’t anything too major we should be moving in before Christmas, which will be amazing.
We’re really lucky to have found a big funky house in a great location, lets just hope we can afford to take on the work.
The nice thing about the situation of the house is that it’s less than 5 minutes to the 17, it’s 10 mins to the local town and 20 minutes to Los Gatos. Although it’s relatively remote it’s on a private road with 5 or 6 other houses and although you can’t see your neighbours from the house, you know there are other people around and therefore it doesn’t feel quite so lonely.
Anyway, fingers crossed inspections come back OK and then we will be homeowners once again by the end of the year.
I’ll keep y’all posted! 
Peace and love
Fi
xxx