This was the view outside the plane window as we came into Portland. Beautiful Mt. Hood. We had come up with a list of about 10 houses we wanted to look at to rent. Steve had organized them on a spreadsheet (of course) with school ratings, rent price, bedrooms, sq. feet, etc. We were excited because we felt it was a renters market and with my great barganing skills I learned in Jerusalem and Haiti I was for sure I would be able to talk them down at least a few hundred dollars on the rent (to Steve's dismay...thinking I was being impractical). The first house we went through we loved. We were going to put in a contract until after the tour of the place the property manager said, "now there are two contracts submitted that are ahead of yours and according to Oregon law the first contract gets first priority. Now you can still submit (for $80) or I can let you know if one of the other two did not get cleared." We opted for the latter. We never heard from her again.
Now I could go into detail of the next 10 plus houses we saw but I will spare you the pain. Basically nothing was as good as the first until we came to a particular house that we walked into and felt really good about it. It was older but just recently remodled inside. We were both excited about it and immediatly called the property manager (the tenant showed it to us). She said there was a couple interested but they had not submitted their contract. We asked where we could meet her to turn it in. She said she would call us in an hour and let us know. The next hour went by and we called her. She said the other couple was going to submit thiers and that they had trouble downloading it, so she felt she should give them priority. She gave us a time to meet her. We were a little ticked that she was giving these people priority (since we now were pros on OR renters law :)). We headed down to her office and we called our other appointment and told him we were going to be late. He said to just try to make it as close to 4 as we could. Long story made a little shorter. We traveled the long haul to her office and filled out the blasted contract and brown nosed her the whole time. She was quite a particular lady and even asked what we would do with our kids when they were eating because the dining room had carpet. I quickly stated we would put a rug under the table and Steve started telling the lady how great our kids were. We were sucking up. Desperate to find a home because we both knew we were leaving the next day and needed to sign a lease before then. With much labor and phone calls we completed the contract and got into the car at 4:45 (our other appointment was at 4). I called the guy and told his secretary that we were running really late. I was on the verge of cancelling, but for some reason I didn't. I told her we would be another 20 min and she said she would let him know. We argued the whole way there about our number two option house, because we disagreed (I wanted some old huge home and he wanted a nicer one but it had a deck with a pond below and I would have too many mother nightmares with that). Well, we made it to the house and miraculously the manager was there. We apologized for being so late and he didn't seem bothered. The family was moving so there was stuff and boxes everywhere. The minute I walked through the bottom floor I wanted to blurt out, "We'll take it!" But I restrained fearing that would be too forward. We toured the rest of the house and we were thrilled. It was better than any of the others. It had a "bonus room" which they couldn't list it as a 4 bedroom because it didn't have a closet. It had a backyard and a deck. It was cute and built in the late 90's. It just get's better from here. At the end of the tour with the owner and manager we said we'll take it...is there anyone ahead of us? They said we were the first ones through. Steve mentioned being LDS, which to be honest made me a little nervous because I was afraid the guy would be anti and find a reason to not let us rent but instead he said, "oh the backyard neigbors are mormon and they have a three year old little girl." I was just thinking to myself, this could not get any better. But oh yes, it could. He said we only had to pay half the contract fee because we were married and by moving into this area we belonged to the Tualitin Valley Recreation (which he explained people pay non-resident fees to get into because it is so great). The owner also mentioned there might be an option to buy. Oh, and it is a great neighborhood, great schools, and some great jogging paths nearby.
Let's hope it all pans out and we have a great year.
This is it...
Oh, and it actually didn't rain while we were there. It was sunny and beautiful.
