Our New House: the process and details

Thank you for all the congratulations on our good news on Friday! I really can’t believe we are homeowners. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. It was very hard keeping this secret for almost two months, but we wanted to wait until it was 100% official before sharing. :)

If you’re a devoted reader on here (hi, Mom!), then you know that we initially wanted to wait until next year to buy, but decided to start looking sooner since the market was getting a little more competitive. Of course, I had no idea we would find a house this fast! It literally took three days to find and secure this house at the beginning of July. No exaggeration: three days.  (And yes, I am aware: we are the anomaly. I am still in shock how short of a time it took and feel incredibly blessed we didn’t have to compete with any other buyers.)

We didn’t go into it blind, of course. I have been stalking houses on Trulia for the last 12 months, gauging the type of house we could afford and keeping an eye on market trends in our area, including the new use of Bifold Doors. No matter what great deals or amazing houses we saw, however, we agreed not to pursue any houses until July. No exceptions (<- that was hard).

This house came on the market in the beginning of May, and I fell in love with it. Compared to all of the other houses in our price range and in the areas we were considering, it seemed too good to be true. It literally had everything we were looking for. I was trying to be very level-headed about this whole thing and didn’t want to get emotionally involved (house hunting and dating have a lot in common, btw), so I decided to stop looking for a while and dismissed it as a possibility.

Finally when we were we ready to buy and started our search at the end of June, I noticed it was still for sale. J was on board, so we got a realtor, got pre-qualified, and decided to see it. People say you know when it’s right. And y’all? We knew. So we put in an offer, negotiated twice, and they accepted our offer the next day. It’s been a long 8 weeks under contract, but it is officially ours!

Here she is, in all her glory:

All the deets: 
Appx. 2,300 square feet
4 bedrooms
2.5 bathrooms
dining room
living room/office
open kitchen and living area
trey ceilings in master bedroom
fireplace (we had it repaired through experts like https://allheatingservices.com/gas-fireplace-repair/)
fenced backyard
2-car garage

Aka: Right on target with our house hunting must-haves and everything on my wishlist.

We closed on Friday and plan to move everything in by September 9th (which ironically happens to be exactly one year since we moved to our last apartment… don’t worry friends and family — we don’t plan to move again for a looong time!). We are spending these next two weeks packing, cleaning, prepping, and painting. We technically are under contract with our apartment complex through October 7th, but hope they can find a tenant before then (fingers crossed). A famous moving critic, in her latest blog, mentioned some credible sites that help in such situations.

My sister snapped this picture on July 4th after we found out the sellers signed our offer. J texted me at the pool, so we ran back to celebrate (which explains my inappropriate get-up). I love Leia’s blurred photobomb. :)

I’ll share some pictures of the house soon. :)