Thursday, September 19, 2013
Thursday, September 5, 2013
House Buying Journey
I am a homeowner. I keep thinking, "Is this real?" "Am I old enough to do this?" (And then I remember I already have a minivan and that makes me feel older than owning a house. :))
Seems crazy that we are here. At this place in our lives. I think a year ago, we never would have expected to walk the journey we walked to get to this place today. The day we close on our first home. (7/30/13) What a special and strange day.
After months of consideration and many reasons and more prayers, we realized our current city was just not the place for us to continue raising our family and owning property. And we chose to look in a place we'd never even thought of before - Indiana. Let me pause here for a moment; we chose to consider uprooting ourselves from everything we've known these last 5+ years of marriage. We chose to consider leaving the friends who have known us before children, those who've journeyed down parenthood through the joys and struggles that that brings. We chose to consider leaving a church that has solid theology and undeniable fellowship that is HARD to come by. Even typing that now makes me teary, as I know we've chosen to leave a place we've made so many memories with and that is loved. And I can't even transition from this point very well. It's not a "but Indiana is the promise land!" All I can say is that it is where God has been leading us and what our family is needing at this point in life. I don't know that we will live their forever; for now this is where we are supposed to be.
We went into this process with a whole lot of unknowns. We've never owned a home and thought with this being a sellers market (at least when we started-Jan 2013), we naively thought it would a breeze, a plate full of options. Hmm...I was so open then...I had no idea what road we'd be walking. The only way I can describe this process is as if I've lost someone.
House #1: This was our "we're living the dream and finding a house as fast as we expected!" Not a perfect home, but more space than we expected. A tri-level with a wonderful basement with fireplace. Smaller rooms, open eat-in kitchen. Huge backyard and hardwood flooring. We wanted to make some changes, but these owners were the most like us in style. The funny thing about this house is the owners were only willing to go $200 below listing price...we liked it so we thought, "whatever." Doesn't sound like a heartbreak...until the inspection shows LOTS of mold in the attic - like covering the entire underside of the roof and mold in the crawl space. Not all would walk away at this point and they were willing to fix it, but we know some scary stuff about mold and had to walk away. And we felt like it was the right decision but we were sad and disappointed.
So we carried on. (We'd seen about six houses at this point.)
House #2: This was my dream home. Everything was perfect from my perspective. New everything! Big bedrooms with organizers in the closets. A fourth room for the studio near the bottom portion of this tri-level. Only downside was a huge front yard but small backyard. It was a flipped foreclosure which presents a whole set of issues like unknown age of larger appliances and what the home has been through with previous owners. However, since it was our realtor's property, we didn't want to seem too excited and told her we'd get back to her. But I loved this home. Long story short, we were informed a bit too late that an offer had been accepted. To say that I was devastated is an understatement - I broke down. I was so emotional and didn't realize that I was so attached to the home. I left this house feeling like nothing would ever compare.
And we carried on again. (We'd seen about 20+ houses at this point.)
House #3: This was Eric's favorite. Having my heart broken on the last one, I was hesitant and reserved. I can't say there were many downsides to this home. Beautiful eat-in kitchen (with those fancy slow cabinet closers) with a semi island with stools. A stunning deck with a huge wooden fenced backyard, and one of the few houses that didn't have a pool taking up all that yard space. The bathrooms had been refinished, the house was so well kept. We saw this house on day 2 of it being on the market. Day 3 we made an offer and found out we'd have to give our best offer (which we did!) since there was another offer on the table. We were outbid. I wasn't surprised or disappointed (Eric was); I think I just felt apathetic at this point and began to question if we should keep looking.
And we carried on again... (We'd seen upwards of 40+ houses...)
House #4: The deceivingly large house. A ranch style house (hadn't looked at many of these) with a full basement. This wasn't on the market yet and was a foreclosed flip. We saw it at the point of flooring just in - everything was beautiful and almost like we'd remodeled it ourselves based on taste. The seller was also the one remodeling the place, and we told her we were willing to pay what she wanted for it and asked her if she'd be willing to add a fence. There was work to be completed on the house, and we were willing to wait. We asked to wait to sign a contract till completion but were continually asked what kinds of appliances we'd like, fencing, etc. We were told we were the only ones who'd seen the house. We were told it was ours...until she calls our realtor (after 5+ wks of waiting and saying it was "only two weeks more") and to say there's a contract with another couple. It was an offer she couldn't pass up. "Sorry, nothing can change at this point." We COULD NOT believe this. At this point, we were both just angry. We felt deceived and strung along.
I did not want to carry on. Eric was much more hopeful that we'd still find something, but I was spent. I said that I thought I could only keep emotionally going maybe one more time. Then, we just needed to take a break, allow myself to heal and not be so tainted from this experience. I was hopeless. (I'm thinking upwards of having seen...50+ houses?) One last trip with about four more houses. Also, I forgot to mention that we'd been bringing our kids along with us (3+hr. round trip with the added time of actually looking at the houses), but our relator was/is a rock star and was very VERY kind and patient with us.
House #5: Another "not on the market yet." Annoying? No, but our relator was the selling agent as well. (Not as bad as it sounds, and hey, look at our situations, we were open to anything at this point! She even said, "I'm in control of this one, unlike the other.") A family lived here and had toyed around with the idea of selling but needed someone willing to buy their home before they bought another home in the area. This was not a "dream" home for either of us. It was simple, moderate. But perfectly fit our needs. It did have some awful hunter green carpet and a dark, dark cranberry kitchen, but nothing a feel hours (or now I know days) couldn't change. This house had cosmetic changes, changes we felt hopefully would make this feel like 'us'. A couple bonus, unexpected items in this house were a huge, fenced backyard with screened in porch. A two and a half car detached garage. An office area separate from the three bedrooms, and a huge! pantry/laundry area. We saw the ability to host friends and parties here - something we have a passion for. It's not extravagant, but it was just what we didn't know we needed. We were willing to put in an offer that day.
At this point, I'll cut to the chase and backtrack on the details of what occurred next - we bought house #5 (or #60, whatever way you look at it)! But you must know that it couldn't be easy, cause nothing had been easy on this journey for us. (We are at early-June 2013 at this point.) We were willing to pay asking price; however, our offer was contingent on the sellers finding a house within 10 days. There was a "maybe house" for them that fell through, but at the last moment on day 10 (yes, hours before the contract was voided), they had a signed and accepted offer on the table. So we finalized paperwork and the closing date was set for July 15th-30th. And then, we waited through the inspection - all was well! Waited through financing - a natural part of the process. All all good. A week before we were to close, there was speculation from our realtor that we might not be able to close in time because our financing paperwork might not be ready. But all was a go for July 30th - Eric bought a house right before he turned 30 (on the 31st!), one of his goals. :) Only hiccup here was their financing wasn't going to come through until Aug. 2nd. For us it was no big deal to let them "rent" the house for a couple days till they could move since we were going to be out of town that weekend anyways.
So, we are homeowners and we earned our way here. :) We moved in Aug. 10th, only eight months after we started looking. To finish off the "good luck" of our journey, we didn't have water supplied to our house for two days...something just had to go wrong at this point. No big deal, we just laughed it off and thankfully could shower at our friends's/neighbors house down the street. :)
Let us know if you're in northern Indiana! We'd love to see you! We'll give you a good meal and lots of love. :)
Seems crazy that we are here. At this place in our lives. I think a year ago, we never would have expected to walk the journey we walked to get to this place today. The day we close on our first home. (7/30/13) What a special and strange day.
After months of consideration and many reasons and more prayers, we realized our current city was just not the place for us to continue raising our family and owning property. And we chose to look in a place we'd never even thought of before - Indiana. Let me pause here for a moment; we chose to consider uprooting ourselves from everything we've known these last 5+ years of marriage. We chose to consider leaving the friends who have known us before children, those who've journeyed down parenthood through the joys and struggles that that brings. We chose to consider leaving a church that has solid theology and undeniable fellowship that is HARD to come by. Even typing that now makes me teary, as I know we've chosen to leave a place we've made so many memories with and that is loved. And I can't even transition from this point very well. It's not a "but Indiana is the promise land!" All I can say is that it is where God has been leading us and what our family is needing at this point in life. I don't know that we will live their forever; for now this is where we are supposed to be.
We went into this process with a whole lot of unknowns. We've never owned a home and thought with this being a sellers market (at least when we started-Jan 2013), we naively thought it would a breeze, a plate full of options. Hmm...I was so open then...I had no idea what road we'd be walking. The only way I can describe this process is as if I've lost someone.
House #1: This was our "we're living the dream and finding a house as fast as we expected!" Not a perfect home, but more space than we expected. A tri-level with a wonderful basement with fireplace. Smaller rooms, open eat-in kitchen. Huge backyard and hardwood flooring. We wanted to make some changes, but these owners were the most like us in style. The funny thing about this house is the owners were only willing to go $200 below listing price...we liked it so we thought, "whatever." Doesn't sound like a heartbreak...until the inspection shows LOTS of mold in the attic - like covering the entire underside of the roof and mold in the crawl space. Not all would walk away at this point and they were willing to fix it, but we know some scary stuff about mold and had to walk away. And we felt like it was the right decision but we were sad and disappointed.
So we carried on. (We'd seen about six houses at this point.)
House #2: This was my dream home. Everything was perfect from my perspective. New everything! Big bedrooms with organizers in the closets. A fourth room for the studio near the bottom portion of this tri-level. Only downside was a huge front yard but small backyard. It was a flipped foreclosure which presents a whole set of issues like unknown age of larger appliances and what the home has been through with previous owners. However, since it was our realtor's property, we didn't want to seem too excited and told her we'd get back to her. But I loved this home. Long story short, we were informed a bit too late that an offer had been accepted. To say that I was devastated is an understatement - I broke down. I was so emotional and didn't realize that I was so attached to the home. I left this house feeling like nothing would ever compare.
And we carried on again. (We'd seen about 20+ houses at this point.)
House #3: This was Eric's favorite. Having my heart broken on the last one, I was hesitant and reserved. I can't say there were many downsides to this home. Beautiful eat-in kitchen (with those fancy slow cabinet closers) with a semi island with stools. A stunning deck with a huge wooden fenced backyard, and one of the few houses that didn't have a pool taking up all that yard space. The bathrooms had been refinished, the house was so well kept. We saw this house on day 2 of it being on the market. Day 3 we made an offer and found out we'd have to give our best offer (which we did!) since there was another offer on the table. We were outbid. I wasn't surprised or disappointed (Eric was); I think I just felt apathetic at this point and began to question if we should keep looking.
And we carried on again... (We'd seen upwards of 40+ houses...)
House #4: The deceivingly large house. A ranch style house (hadn't looked at many of these) with a full basement. This wasn't on the market yet and was a foreclosed flip. We saw it at the point of flooring just in - everything was beautiful and almost like we'd remodeled it ourselves based on taste. The seller was also the one remodeling the place, and we told her we were willing to pay what she wanted for it and asked her if she'd be willing to add a fence. There was work to be completed on the house, and we were willing to wait. We asked to wait to sign a contract till completion but were continually asked what kinds of appliances we'd like, fencing, etc. We were told we were the only ones who'd seen the house. We were told it was ours...until she calls our realtor (after 5+ wks of waiting and saying it was "only two weeks more") and to say there's a contract with another couple. It was an offer she couldn't pass up. "Sorry, nothing can change at this point." We COULD NOT believe this. At this point, we were both just angry. We felt deceived and strung along.
I did not want to carry on. Eric was much more hopeful that we'd still find something, but I was spent. I said that I thought I could only keep emotionally going maybe one more time. Then, we just needed to take a break, allow myself to heal and not be so tainted from this experience. I was hopeless. (I'm thinking upwards of having seen...50+ houses?) One last trip with about four more houses. Also, I forgot to mention that we'd been bringing our kids along with us (3+hr. round trip with the added time of actually looking at the houses), but our relator was/is a rock star and was very VERY kind and patient with us.
House #5: Another "not on the market yet." Annoying? No, but our relator was the selling agent as well. (Not as bad as it sounds, and hey, look at our situations, we were open to anything at this point! She even said, "I'm in control of this one, unlike the other.") A family lived here and had toyed around with the idea of selling but needed someone willing to buy their home before they bought another home in the area. This was not a "dream" home for either of us. It was simple, moderate. But perfectly fit our needs. It did have some awful hunter green carpet and a dark, dark cranberry kitchen, but nothing a feel hours (or now I know days) couldn't change. This house had cosmetic changes, changes we felt hopefully would make this feel like 'us'. A couple bonus, unexpected items in this house were a huge, fenced backyard with screened in porch. A two and a half car detached garage. An office area separate from the three bedrooms, and a huge! pantry/laundry area. We saw the ability to host friends and parties here - something we have a passion for. It's not extravagant, but it was just what we didn't know we needed. We were willing to put in an offer that day.
At this point, I'll cut to the chase and backtrack on the details of what occurred next - we bought house #5 (or #60, whatever way you look at it)! But you must know that it couldn't be easy, cause nothing had been easy on this journey for us. (We are at early-June 2013 at this point.) We were willing to pay asking price; however, our offer was contingent on the sellers finding a house within 10 days. There was a "maybe house" for them that fell through, but at the last moment on day 10 (yes, hours before the contract was voided), they had a signed and accepted offer on the table. So we finalized paperwork and the closing date was set for July 15th-30th. And then, we waited through the inspection - all was well! Waited through financing - a natural part of the process. All all good. A week before we were to close, there was speculation from our realtor that we might not be able to close in time because our financing paperwork might not be ready. But all was a go for July 30th - Eric bought a house right before he turned 30 (on the 31st!), one of his goals. :) Only hiccup here was their financing wasn't going to come through until Aug. 2nd. For us it was no big deal to let them "rent" the house for a couple days till they could move since we were going to be out of town that weekend anyways.
So, we are homeowners and we earned our way here. :) We moved in Aug. 10th, only eight months after we started looking. To finish off the "good luck" of our journey, we didn't have water supplied to our house for two days...something just had to go wrong at this point. No big deal, we just laughed it off and thankfully could shower at our friends's/neighbors house down the street. :)
Let us know if you're in northern Indiana! We'd love to see you! We'll give you a good meal and lots of love. :)
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