House Hunting: The End — A Sunflower Odyssey

Jun 9

Jun 9 House Hunting: The End

I recognize that my "House Hunting" posts only include a whopping two episodes, meaning, after you read this, you're done with the entire series. My apologies, but it has been a major whirlwind. In the last week or two, we've probably viewed about 30-40 places in total. A majority of those viewings have consisted of us walking into a place, quickly looking around, then leaving before we suffocate and/or sweat to death. It has not been the normal glamorous viewings that you see on TV, but rather the opposite.

It is common practice here to view properties with more than one realtor, so after our first realtor exhausted her options, we moved on to another suggestion. I liked our new realtor right away. She is a very slender, tall woman with fiery red hair, reminding me of a feisty version of The Little Mermaid. She hails from Albania, and during our first outing with her, she casually told us a story about how within the first week that she was here, she was out at a club and a Saudi man tried to touch her inappropriately, so she promptly turned and punched him in the face. I liked her immediately.

Right off the bat she showed us a villa and a flat that for the first time McLean and I walked into feeling as if we could really live there. Both were in Amwaj Islands, a man-made island in the north of Bahrain where a lot of expats and Westerners live. Unlike the rest of Bahrain, Amwaj boasts palm trees, walking trails, green grass, and easy access to the crystal clear water. In stark contrast to most of the other places we had seen, the villa and apartment we viewed were both clean AND were decorated with nice, tasteful furniture. Unlike in the U.S., landlords here show rentals in extremely dirty and gross conditions because they don't see the point in cleaning the place and having it nice for people to just view, not actually live in. So we would frequently walk into dusty homes with paint cans strewn on the floor, tiles all over the kitchen, and appliances carelessly thrown into random corners ("Why is the dish washer in the garage?"). And up until this point, all of our tours had been self-guided, with the realtor just opening the door and letting us poke around. I actually appreciated that, because generally speaking you can tell almost right away if a place will do or not. But Anduela showed us around, discussed amenities with us, and was very engaged in our viewing.

Finally, we decided on a 4 bedroom villa with a lovely back patio, a beautiful and bright kitchen and living area and water access about 50 yards away. Anduela kindly showed us the place again the very next day, and we meticulously went through and thought of our furniture and how it could fit. Then we started discussing negotiations for the lease. Anduela suggested that we go home and think of the things that we want in our lease, then send them to her for her to discuss with the landlord. As we were leaving, Anduela assured me saying "I am woman, I go to him and tell him 'this is what I want in the lease' and since I am woman, he says okay." We had already learned that Anduela is the kind of woman that you always want on your side. Needless to say, the landlord agreed to all of the things that we negotiated for.

Another common occurrence is that the landlord can provide you with certain pieces of furniture because they often own several homes and can just move the furniture between homes. We do not have a dining room table, so we requested that the landlord include one with the house. We also saw the lack of cabinets/kitchen storage and requested a china cabinet-like piece of furniture to accompany the dining room table. So, Anduela said that she would ask the landlord. Fast forward to a few hours later, and Anduela sends me a text saying "Landlord say he will buy you new china cabinet for house." McLean and I looked at each other, laughed and shrugged. We didn't specifically ask for that, but alright, we'll take it.

We still won't be moving in for about another month and a half because our household goods are still floating on some ship in the Atlantic Ocean. That means several more weeks of hotel living, which is not ideal, but also is not the worst option in the world. We have a rooftop pool here, a nice gym, McLean can take a shuttle into work (so I don't have to be inconvenienced by waking up early to drive my husband to work.....), and we are close to base. We are looking forward to having a nice large space of our own though, because it will be the first time in our marriage that we intend to stay in a space for more than a few months. In other words, it will be the first time that we work to create a place that we can call "home." Well, for two years at least.

Here is a link to our new villa. I'm not sure how long it will stay on the website, but hopefully you can take a peek before it's taken down.
https://www.bahrainpropertyworld.com/rent/villa-for-rent-in-bahrain-amwaj-islands-18052612480971.html