The perks of expatriation. Part 4: the house
- 3 feb 2016
- 2 minuten om te lezen
Another perk of expatriation is being able to look for a house in a foreing country, (partially) paid for by the employer. In our case that meant that we could affort to rent a big house with a pool. But finding that perfect place wasn't all that easy.
We were lucky to be able to actually go to our future home town a few months ago and visit rental homes in the area. And I do not know what is wrong with American (rental) homes, but they all looked old, dirty and not taken care off. Or maybe we were just unlucky to only see those houses that nobody else wanted anymore. We spent the week racing from real estate agent to real estate agent, calling house owners and our local contacts, but ended up with noting else than pockets full of business cards...
Near the end of our stay, we decided to change our strategy and call real estate agents of houses that were listed for sale. These houses looked considerably better (they obviously are not for rent for a reason), were bigger and much more our style. Even though most real estate agents turned us down, we got lucky with one of them and could even go and check it out the same day.
And we fell in love! It was modern, big and had a pool we could only dream of in our home country. Or anywhere else for that matter. We were over the moon with excitement. But unfortunately (because it cannot simply go as well as you hoped), the next day the offer was suddenly rejected and our big dream shattered...
A little (okay very much) depressed we decided to no longer see agents and visit houses, but to spend our last day in the States at a Desert museum. Which was great fun by the way, and highly likely a future blog topic ;) But we went back home empty handed...
It was stressful, to say the least, to count down the days without knowing where we would end up living for three years. Against all odds, we decided to just ask again (with a little extra money from the boss).
And then, in the last days of 2015, a miracle happened: the offer got accepted and the contract was set up and signed by all parties before the end of the year! If it was the extra montly rent or our persuasion we will never know, but at the very last moment we still got what we hoped for.
This week the container with our stuff finally arrived. It was quite embarrassing, actually, to see our small couch, table and bed being placed in this huge house, not even using the second floor... But luckily there is IKEA all over the world! But before spending a fortune on furniture to fill this place, we first need to start unpacking our boxes and enjoy our well-deserved (come on, this was hard work) big ass house and pool.
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