As we were unpacking wedding gifts a few months ago, surrounded by boxes and little storage space, I said to Michael “We need a bigger place.”
He nodded his head in agreement.
And thus the seed was planted.
Of course, we always knew we were not going to stay in our 2 bedroom condo for that long. Maybe another year or two until we decided to expand our family.
Then we found out that a unit in our building had just gone on the market and that there was a lot of interest in the building.
Hmmmm…maybe we should ride that wave?
So we did.
We met with our realtor in early February and discussed what would need to happen in order to get our place stage ready.
Lots of stuff.
Ouch.
But all very doable.
We began casually looking at houses, perusing real estate websites, going to an open house here and there, just to see what was out there.
Not a whole lot.
Inventory was quite low.
But we were getting a sense for what we liked, what we didn’t like, square footage space, neighborhoods we wanted to be in, etc.
In the meantime, we were making arrangements to put our place on the market around Spring Break, which was during the last week of March. Plenty of time!
About two weeks before we were planning to go live and have our first Open House, our realtor called and said there was a couple interested in seeing our place, fully knowing it was not staged yet.
We were a little hesitant at first (our condo was cluttered with boxes and other things), but realized there was nothing to lose. This was Tuesday. They wanted to see it Thursday morning. So the next two days we scrambled around getting everything ready and clean and as “staged” as possible.
It looked great, all things considered.
And they LOVED it. So much so that they put in an offer that night which we ultimately accepted.
It was a relief to not have to put our condo on the market, move things into storage, paint, have it “staged” at all times, be out of the condo so people could see it, etc.
But holy sh*t! We were under contract!
And, uhhhh…holy sh*t! We needed to find a new home! And fast.
So thus the intense home search began.
The pressure was on.
Quite honestly, it started to become more stressful than it was fun. I know everyone says looking for a new home should be a fun process, but at some point, you realize you are in a time crunch and it becomes really quite stressful.
I was on Homesnap constantly.
We picked up on when homes would go on the market (usually mid-week) and learned that we had to make appointments to see them before the Open House over the weekend. Be the first ones through the door.
We were blessed with some snow days and Spring Break that allowed us to see homes during the day.
We had our one major disappointment (you can read about that here) which left us feeling deflated and down in the dumps. And somewhat bitter. But it also taught us some very good lessons. Definitely some non-attachment lessons. (sooooo hard!)
It also forced us to think a little more outside the box. We were pretty set on a single-family home but started to reconsider town homes. We actually looked very seriously at a new construction of town homes. Not exactly in the area we wanted to be in, but a more short-term situation.
Funny thing is, we were about to put in an offer on that when we saw a house pop up on the market. It was in the area we wanted to be in and had most of the things we were looking for in a house.
But the Open House was Easter weekend and we were going to be out of town for both Passover and Easter.
So we made an appointment to see it the Monday after Easter, right before school (8:30am!). Michael would close on our condo later that very same day.
Aaaaaaand we loved it.
This was it.
(Ummmm…how about that backyard view? Yes, that is a golf course.)
As we were standing in the kitchen deliberating with our realtor (because everything happens in the kitchen, right?), she reminded us that, in the span of a little over 3 weeks, we had seen 28 homes with her (that’s not counting all the open houses we saw on our own!). We had basically seen most of what is out there.
So we put in a very aggressive and strong offer.
We wanted this house.
It helped to now have cash on hand.
And we got it! We were soooooo excited and relieved!
We closed 2 1/2 weeks later and are now home owners. Yipppppeeeeee!
It doesn’t feel real. At all.
I don’t think until we move all our stuff in and spend our very first night in our new home will it finally sink in.
But it’s certainly exciting.
I’ve never owned a home before.
Being a foreign service brat, I always wondered if I would be the type of person that would want to settle down and establish roots or feel the need to keep moving.
Well, I found a mix of both. I definitely want to stay in this area, but I have also moved 9 times (within the area) in 14 years. This will be my 10th, and FINAL, move. For awhile, at least.
So, here’s to home ownership and all the joys it will most certainly bring!
A few workouts:
Do what makes you happy.