Scott and I met with a woman for lunch today who enhanced our lives while living in Virginia and probably saved us more stress than we know. Her name is Bobbie and she's a realtor in Ogden area for Coldwell Banker. She is at the epicenter of helping us to avoid a very all-too-unfortunately-common occurrence: renting/leasing/housing scams.
Back when we knew we'd be moving to Ogden, we began looking for places to live. Scott found one on Craigs List and sent the ad to his mom and me. His mom did some research and found the same place on the MLS listings. Interesting (red flag 1) we thought. We prayed and moved forward with the communications with the "owner" of the building but something didn't feel right to me (red flag 2). Scott put his skills into play, checked a few things, spoke with the "owner" on the phone, and sure enough found out that the "owner" was in a different country than the e-mails Scott had received (red flag 3).
During this 24-48 hour period, Scott called Bobbie, the listing agent for the house (found thanks to his mom's finding the MLS post). She listened and told us that the "owner" was not really the owner, but the real owner was a man in the military along with his wife. Scott completed all of the internet fraud reports that he could, as Bobbie (whom we had just met via phone) told us about a friend of hers that was renovating a duplex. There was an apartment available.
Bobbie put in a good word for us with her friend upon hearing our story, our goals, and other aspects of our lives. She was instrumental in helping us to not be scammed and in finding a place to stay.
The "place" her friend was renovating is amazing. It's our favorite place (as compared to the other place we lived along with many other places to come for sure). The home/apartment is warm, it's beautiful, it faces the Wasatch mountains, it's in a prime location that is very diverse; and, we are thrilled with it. It's super affordable and it just fits us. Our landlord (Bobbie's friend) is a wonderful man. We could not be more grateful.
So today we met for lunch, which Bobbie suggested back when we were in Virginia communicating via e-mail. We started off at Tona and then moved on to dessert at Pampas Bakery. Tona was amazing! I had the bento box while Scott and Bobbie split many different varieties of sushi. Not wanting lunch to end, I asked Bobbie if she knew of Pampas. She didn't.
I explained where it was and what was there, and she was excited to go. We enjoyed a sample of the owner's favorite factura (sweet bread with vanilla custard) while waiting for the chocolate alfajores to be completed. Bobbie loved them as much as we did when we tried them yesterday (yes, we visited 2 days after we went there on Wednesday- we just saved the alfajores 'til Thursday to eat).
If you are ever in this area, please check out either one or both. Tona has phenomenal reviews, and the three of us give Pampas at least four stars with an extra sparkle for the owner's excellent customer service and great personality.
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