As it turned out, we only had several days to adjust, before Suzanne booked us on a flight to Boulder with the goal of locking down a rental home. Exhausted as we were, we were excited and admittedly a bit nervous to arrive there, knowing that this would be our new town. We stayed at my brother's place and began our property search with 5 promising options to look at. Unfortunately after 2 days, we had nothing to show for our efforts and we were discouraged. Seemed that everything we were looking at was either too small or had no yard. There were some interesting spec house options, but ultimately they were too expensive and we felt were more for showing/entertaining than living in. With our return flight looming, Suzanne asked me to stay 2 more days to keep searching and she headed back to pick up the kids from a long weekend with their babysitter. I must have called dozens of realtors and looked at over twenty places, but still did not have anything concrete by the time my trip ended. On one hand, it was only a rental, but we were going in with the attitude of finding a place where we might eventually settle, which made the search more challenging. Discouraged and frustrated, I headed back home empty-handed.
The only angle that seemed to be working for us was by contacting the realtors of houses on the markets to enquire about rentals. After all, that's how we ended up renting out our house in CA, so we knew that this approach could work. It just meant more searching and a more creative effort. Suzanne began to dust off her previous house searches, and we started walking down the call lists. Fortunately, my brother Jeff and his wife Lynn were on the ground in Boulder, and they made several critical visits to "weed out" houses in our absence.
Within several days Suzanne hit paydirt - a lovely house in N. Boulder whose owners were moving to S. Africa in August and had not been able to sell their house in time.
Everything seemed to fall together perfectly for both families. The house was huge and sat on a beautiful five-acre park. Plus it bordered the local middle school, with several ballfields, a track and 8 tennis courts almost literally in our backyard! While we had not originally targeted North Boulder, it turned out to be a wonderful family setup and just felt right on many levels.
As it turned out, we only had several days to adjust, before Suzanne booked us on a flight to Boulder with the goal of locking down a rental home. Exhausted as we were, we were excited and admittedly a bit nervous to arrive there, knowing that this would be our new town. We stayed at my brother's place and began our property search with 5 promising options to look at. Unfortunately after 2 days, we had nothing to show for our efforts and we were discouraged. Seemed that everything we were looking at was either too small or had no yard. There were some interesting spec house options, but ultimately they were too expensive and we felt were more for showing/entertaining than living in. With our return flight looming, Suzanne asked me to stay 2 more days to keep searching and she headed back to pick up the kids from a long weekend with their babysitter. I must have called dozens of realtors and looked at over twenty places, but still did not have anything concrete by the time my trip ended. On one hand, it was only a rental, but we were going in with the attitude of finding a place where we might eventually settle, which made the search more challenging. Discouraged and frustrated, I headed back home empty-handed.
The only angle that seemed to be working for us was by contacting the realtors of houses on the markets to enquire about rentals. After all, that's how we ended up renting out our house in CA, so we knew that this approach could work. It just meant more searching and a more creative effort. Suzanne began to dust off her previous house searches, and we started walking down the call lists. Fortunately, my brother Jeff and his wife Lynn were on the ground in Boulder, and they made several critical visits to "weed out" houses in our absence.
Within several days Suzanne hit paydirt - a lovely house in N. Boulder whose owners were moving to S. Africa in August and had not been able to sell their house in time. 
Everything seemed to fall together perfectly for both families. The house was huge and sat on a beautiful five-acre park. Plus it bordered the local middle school, with several ballfields, a track and 8 tennis courts almost literally in our backyard! While we had not originally targeted North Boulder, it turned out to be a wonderful family setup and just felt right on many levels.
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