We bought a House!

Last weekend, Isaac and I bought our first home together. Wowee! We are still a little in shock thinking, did we really just purchase a home? When did we grow old enough to do that??

We began looking actually not too long after we got back from our honeymoon. Before we even began looking, we went to speak to a mortgage broker to see financially what this would look like and get pre-approved to buy a home. We had to find out if we were allowed and were able to buy a home first, before we started looking.

Looking for us did not mean we are for sure buying a house. We were just seeing what was out there and learning about what it meant to buy/own a home.

The looking part was harder than I thought it would be. I became very picky. I didn’t think I would be picky, because anything sounded better than a one bedroom apartment. But I realized than when you are putting so much money into something, it is okay to be somewhat picky. I also realized that you will not get everything you want in a first home. You must be willing to sacrifice some wants and realize you can get them later.

These are the most important things to me when we were looking for a home:

Layout- I wanted an open layout. I wanted the kitchen to be somewhat open to the dining and living room.

Pantry- must have for me.

Fireplace-also a must have

Good natural light meaning lots of windows

Good size closet space

3 bedrooms 2 bath

Fence in backyard for our sweetie pie (our dog Izzy)

Fairly updated-I did not want to buy a “fixer upper”

Big open kitchen with a lot of counter space and cabinets- I ended up with a smaller, galley kitchen. It is smaller than I had hoped for, but that was the one big thing I decided I could live without for a little while. 

Overall, I love the whole house, and the price and location were great so that is why I am good with our cute, little kitchen. Also, the kitchen feels bigger, because it is open to the living room.

After our offer on the home was accepted, (we made an offer after the home had been on the market for a day!) the real craziness began. The mortgage company was constantly calling asking for bank statements, copies of old checks from the past few months, running credit reports, questions about things on our credit, sending us paperwork to sign and fax back etc. We also had to shop for home insurance.

 A few days before we were supposed to close, a miscommunication happened between the sellers and their realtor. Long story short, we were told the sellers could not be out of the house by close.

After much negotiation and many phone calls back and forth with our realtor, (stress levels were high), we all came to a negotiation. We decided to close on Friday, and the sellers had until 4:30 pm the next day to be out of the house. We made a new contract that said this, and that they were financially responsible for any damage that might happen to the house after we closed. It was kind of like a lease agreement till they vacated. Our realtor collected a deposit from the sellers at close, and he would give it back to them after we did a second walk-through of the house after they had officially moved out.

When we did our first walk through on Friday, surprisingly they were almost completely out of the house. It was basically empty except for things in the garage and backyard. They ended up vacating earlier than expected on Saturday, which was great for us!

In the end, it all worked out and we are moved in. We have been living among boxes for the last week, but we our in our new home!

Here are some photos! You can see how large the backyard is! 

Izzy loves all the space to run around and having a backyard. Isaac loves his “man room,” and I love my home to decorate J I already know where I am going to put the Christmas tree!

My Crohns with moving:

The only time my stomach really acted up was right before closing. We went to the bank to get our cashier’s check, and I guess I got nervous. All of a sudden, I had bad stomach pain and had to have diarrhea. I was in the bathroom for a little while before we were able to get on our way to the title company. Once we got there and started going through the paperwork, I was fine and my nerves settled down.

On moving day, I felt pretty good. Thank goodness! I was even able to eat a few slices of pizza and nothing really healthy as a meal.