Some time has expired since last I took keyboard in hand to try and communicate. As those who read my posts, comments, opinions, or what ever, know I have a tendency to allow some time to drag by between posts. I shall attempt to do better with this new approach.
Things have changed quite a lot since we last wrote on this blog space. We sold the Misty Lady sadly, and I see where she was sold again a few months ago, so a brand new owner possess that graceful old motor yacht. Hope they will do what we could not, restore her to her former glory.
We also moved into a condo in Alexandria, Virginia and spent slightly over two years there. Though we were of the impression that this condo neighborhood was relatively safe, (it was a limited access with coded locks and gate key fobs) we were to discover after a short while that this was not totally true. We joined the condo neighborhood Facebook page and joined our condo neighbors in discussions about life at the Pointe, in Alexandria. We soon discovered through posts by various residents that all was not totally safe from theft, vandalism or other criminal acts. One neighbor, an Army Sergeant, who was also a member of the Tomb of the Unknown Sentinels, had his new motorcycle stolen from our secure community and the underground garage. We then witnessed posts regarding the theft of air bags, tires and rims and packages from our lobby mail area.
We were both home usually all day, with the Bride Charlotte working remote for her company and the old former Captain was into his 9th and 10th year of retirement. We did quite often go down into the garage to visually check on our car. Finally, Charlotte’s company developed a set of employment status’ which included 1. Full time office, 2. hybrid office and remote, and 3. full time remote. Charlotte was offered and accepted the full time remote.
We then decided that it was time for us to consider a new area for living. It was decided that we would look for, purchase, and move down to the Hampton/Newport News area to a single-family home. Since we had lived in condo apartments almost all of our 30+ years in Northern Virginia, the idea of a stand-alone house with yards all around, a garage and lots of room was exciting. In addition, that area was chock a block with water, water everywhere. The James River, the York River, Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Several other rivers, smaller and now so well known, were feeding the Hampton Roads, one of which was the Hampton River. Wow, what former mariners would not want to be in such an area. One could almost see us settling in, and eventually purchasing a small weekender for sailing around the Peninsula, the Eastern Shore, and even into the Intercoastal Waterway. As yes, to dream, perhaps not the impossible dream however.
So, we placed the sale of our condo in the capable hands of a young woman Real Estate agent named Alanda. She was enthusiastic, professional, and provided us with a developed brochure of our condo, the area, and other attractions. She ran a set of comps to show us what we could reasonably ask and receive for our condo apartment.
I had already started a search of potential homes for sale in the Hampton, Newport News, Yorktown and Williamsburg area. My preference was for Hampton, considering that I had lived there as a teenager (a Hampton High School “Crabber”, the original Hampton High School), as my dad was stationed at Langley AFB. Also lived there later in life working at the NASA Langley Research Facility. So Hampton was “home”, or perhaps not. Neighborhoods that I had always felt were really nice, when I last lived there (in the early 70s) were no longer the really nice, upscale areas. Time had not been kind to these locales. Our Credit Union had a real estate program that provided recommendations for Real Estate Agents and we were pleased with the person they recommended. Kristie was a diligent, professional and enthusiastic agent and worked with us to identify the type of home we were really looking for.
With Kristie’s help, we looked at many places that I had found during my online searches, using Zillow and our local Real Estate Agency’s database linkage, and found disappointment in each place. Either the house was not well kept, or the neighborhood had gone downhill. As senior citizens, we were hoping to find a home in a nice, well kept, and community-styled area.
We did finally, when we were looking at a particular house, (nice house, minimal neighborhood), Charlotte said to the Agent, that she didn’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but we really didn’t need to look at the house, because she was not going to live in that neighborhood. Kristie said that she had a listing that just came on her lists, and mentioned it’s location. While it was not Hampton it was a really great neighborhood in Newport News. Hopefully any of my former Hampton High fellow students would forgive me for moving into the Newport News. When Charlotte and I arrived at the location, we were amazed at the beauty of the entire development and the neighborhoods along the way. We walked up to the house and found it to be very nice looking, 1544 square feet, much larger than anything we had owned or even rented during our 40 plus years together. When we opened the front door, our mutual reaction was, THIS IS THE HOUSE.
We toured the house, the garage and the small courtyard style back yard, then spoke with the Agent about next steps. We drove over to a local Starbucks (you just knew there would be a Starbucks nearby), and decided what to offer, how to style our offer and then Kristie completed the work up on her tablet computer. We signed the formal offer then she emailed it to the selling agent. Fastest home purchase offer we ever made. We then finished our Starbucks drinks, Kristie left for her home in VA Beach and we left for our hotel, which by the way, was actually in the very development where we would wind up purchasing our new home. Kiln Creek is a large planned community, with 31 neighborhoods, over 3,000 houses, condos and apartment complexes. There are over 13,000 people who reside in Kiln and a major attraction is an 18 hole golf resort with a boutique hotel and a full service restaurant.
We had come home!
The owner accepted our offer as modified (another bidder cause us to invoke our automatic escalator clause another 1,200 dollars and the house was ours! Well as soon as we could get the formal closing functions completed. We finally closed on July 8th and began the process of moving out of the hotel where we had stayed for over 5 weeks. The movers had already delivered our furniture and other belongings from Alexandria (we made an amendment with the owner for special occupation to allow the movers to deliver and set up), so we only needed to bring out hotel gear and of course the new fur babies, Duchess and Penny. Now they had tons of room.
Misty Lady Thought and Comment 