I drive out to Lakeside often as my parents live out there and they watch my little one a few times a week so I can help families find homes to raise their families. I was headed out the 52 on Saturday, just after the MONSTER rain storm from the day and night before. I am always amazed of the beautiful sky scapes I see when I’m driving but the mountains in the back drop make for an extraordinary scene but this one with rainbow, well this was an extra good omen and that’s just what the family I was headed to help needed.

The reward of helping people find a home is so heart warming and rewarding words just cannot do the feeling justice still, I’ll try to share why I feel this way. . I feel so blessed to have a career that really changes people’s lives. This family in particular has a story that has brought me to tears on more than one occasion. The story starts with a tenacious, warm, mature woman who contacted me about finding a home. Let’s call her Sue. She told me about how her husband,  Lakeside local, and her father a retired Navy Seal, were pooling their resources to find a home. Sue’s parents’ health was failing. The father COPD was alone in Arizona, where her mother, his wife was in full-time medical care in San Diego.

Sue’s parents were not divorced nor separated. Not in the conventional sense, at least.  They were however, separated by a far more cruel circumstance irreconcilable differences where Sue’s mother had to be hospitalized due to debilitating dementia. She no longer remembers, her daughter, nor her husband. Sue shared with me how her mother is confused and just repeatedly tells her she wants to go home and is just waiting, waiting to get picked up. The underlying motivation for her husband, whose supportive nature makes me well up, and her farther is to put all of them under one roof, so her mother can “come home”  and be with her family in her final years.

After getting to know what they woman and her husband were looking for, I knew they wanted a family home, preferably in Lakeside,  as her husband grew up there and his adult children and their kids lived there. We looked all over Lakeside and most of East County as they were in a “first-time-buyer” looking range, and while we saw several homes that could have served the purpose, we came across this lovely ranch home on Julian Ave that not only had the 3 bedrooms they needed for her folks, her and her husband, but the third room for her son and her Grand Daughter, but the home is right down the street from where Sue’s husband’s parents live and where he grew up.

I feel like in this day and age, the opportunity for multiple generations to live and grow their families in the same small town is becoming rare. Yes, Lakeside, while still part of San Diego County, feels like a small country town. Again, I spend quite a bit of time there and I describe to people like this, when I drive into Lakeside, I feel like I’ve had a glass of wine before I’ve even reached my destination much less corked the bottle.

This home,  while chalked full of country charm including a wooden workshop, HUGE back yard ( you can see my client way in the back if you squint), and completed with a covered porch for sipping lemonade on hot summer day (and boy does it get hot out in Lakeside in the summer). Still, the home was a trust sale, which means some people passed, and passed the home along to some family members who, because they didn’t most recently live in the home are exempt from making the normal disclosures about the property’s condition. The home is definitely in need of some TLC cosmetically but often times when older people leave a home behind deferred maintenance is an issue leaving behind possible deal breakers when it comes to real estate transaction.

The transaction had gone so smooth thus far with great listing representation from Hogue and Belong working with us to help this family find their space to “come home” where the grandchild can attend the same elementary school her grandfather did. We did write a letter to the seller about their valiant mission and having family ties to the properties, themselves were wonderful in giving my clients the opportunity to be homeowners there.

Anyone who’s bought a home or done their research knows the proof is in the home inspection. This is where anything the sellers don’t know or don’t tell is revealed. This often times results in further negotiation, but in our case we agreed to take the house “as-is”. This term while more of an overture that the seller does not intend to make repairs, sometimes it’s necessary to do so to keep the transaction moving forward.  In our instance, I know the seller could make other choices of back-up offers, and I knew my clients weren’t going to be able to come up with funds for a new roof and/or electrical if those issues were to arise. I knew the outcome of this home sale and the future of my clients hung in balance of THIS inspection.

As the rainbow omen mentioned in the opening may have foreshadowed, the inspection went well, almost better than expected if that’s possible. While no cosmetic upgrades aside from exterior paint had been made, many internal upgraded had been made and it had been well maintained. I was so relieved and moved to see my clients be able to exhale, as they had been holding their breaths in hopes and fears while we awaited necessary inspection. Just like the clouds from the storm the day before, the clouds have passed making way to crisp and hopeful views of tomorrow. I have to give a shout out to the home inspector I use, Lawrence Godinez of Guaranteed Home Inspections, for his great bedside manner with our mutual client’s he thorough, honest but always leaves the clients feeling hopeful about their prospective home. I have had other inspectors who make everyone feel depressed and like pulling out. All homes, sometimes even new homes need a little something to make them “perfect”. In any case to see the tension and apprehension wash away from my clients’ faces and posture and see it replaces with hope and planning and design schemes just made me feel soooooo lucky to share these life changing experiences with humans. The greatest reward of being a REALTOR is indeed is the PEOPLE and changing lives for the better.

I’d really be honored to help you or loved ones Move In, Move Out, or Move Up when the time is right in Lakeside, or anywhere in San Diego County. VIP Buyer’s Representation is free for buyers and Sellers – find out how much your home’s worth HERE.

Lenora Lostaunau, MA & REALTOR
Mobile: 619.880.SDRE (7373)
Email: llsellssd@gmail.com