The House Story

Skip this post if you don't want to hear all the boring details about buying our first home... but I just HAVE to blog about this because it's a huge milestone and I just want to remember everything. This blog is for me :)

6 months ago we were in Utah, living with my parents & living off student loans... basically living off NOTHING. I never ever thought we'd be buying a home 6 months later. It's so crazy how quickly life happens and how fast everything changes.

I always thought that you needed 40k to buy a house, no other loans, and a honkin' salary. It seemed SO far away and out of our reach but Landon and I started looking at houses for the fun of it this summer just so we could get familiar with what was out there. It was fun looking through the pictures and communicating with our realtor, Jennifer. Jennifer didn't care that we weren't going to be buying anytime soon.

Well 2 months ago, we decided to go out and start looking at the homes. Unfortunately, Jennifer took 2 months off to be with her little boy (which I totally respect, family=first) so her co-worker took over for a bit. I'm not going to say much about him, but let's just say he tried to push us into making offers on multiple homes when we just weren't ready. Then he dropped us and we had to wait almost a month for Jennifer to come back. Ugh.

So we waited and waited and finally Jennifer got back 2 weeks ago. We were SO happy to have a realtor back that actually cared about us and wasn't pressuring us at all. We looked at over 20 homes and liked a few of them. Originally we were thinking we'd buy a home this spring or even next spring, but we decided to take the "time frame" off ourselves and just wait until we found the perfect house.

Well on Friday (in the rain & the dark) we found the one. I had always heard that when you walk into "the one" you'll just know... and it's totally true! We walked into the house and it just felt like home. No other way to describe it.

We looked at more homes the next day, but just kept thinking about our cute little blue house. While we were driving Landon said, "I think if we want that blue house, we're going to have to make an offer this weekend." My heart stopped. I couldn't believe it was really happening, but I knew he was right. I immediately called our mortgage guy & double checked that we were good to go. I couldn't stop squealing.

Saturday night, we prayed about it and we just had an overwhelming sense of peace.

Sunday morning we woke up and saw that our blue house was having an open house... GREAT! I didn't want other people walking through OUR house and falling in love, because I knew they would. Our realtor emailed me and told me that someone was submitting an offer and that if we really wanted it, we'd have to put an offer in today. We rushed to the blue house, walked through it a second time and still loved it. We went and knocked on a few neighbors doors to ask about the neighborhood. We still loved it. At this point, we knew we were going to have to miss church (GASP!) and make a huge purchase on the Sabbath (GASP, GASP!) but... we just knew we had to do something or else our house would be taken.

We drove right to our realtor's office and spent the next 2 hours going through the paperwork and deciding on our offer. Jennifer is so amazing and even thought to call the listing agent and ask what the sellers wanted... Did they want to give up the fridge? When did they want to move out? Were they expecting to pay closing costs? Do they want to keep their washer and dryer? We totally wrote our offer catering to the seller's every need. The other offer they received was turned down, so we knew this was our chance.

Our offer was submitted around 4 pm and we told them it expired at 9 pm. The next five hours were seriously agonizing. I just felt sick and had a million knots in my stomach. Our realtor would email/call letting me know she hadn't heard anything. 7pm rolled around, 8 pm rolled around and my heart just hurt. I knew there was no way they were going to accept it and we weren't going to accept a counter. We were totally bummed.

8:45 pm our realtor calls us to tell us that the seller had THREE offers that night and that the listing agent sent her a vague email saying our offer was the only offer that got a "response" and that he would be emailing it over shortly. We had no idea what on earth that was supposed to mean and assumed they were going to give us a counter. Immediately we were frustrated...what more could they want?! UGH!

8:55 pm our realtor call us to tell us that they ACCEPTED OUR OFFER on one condition... they want the option to try to find a home by November 30th. Our close date will stay the same (January 6th) but if they haven't found a house, they will rent it back and live in the house until January 30th while paying for our mortgage. No big deal. We couldn't believe it! Out of four offers they chose ours and we are going to be home owners! Their realtor told our realtor that our offer wasn't necessarily the highest but it was the cleanest, most fair, and most flexible. BOOYAH! So grateful we have such an amazing realtor that helped us write the perfect offer!!!

That night we watched Aladdin to try and calm me down. I was SO worked up and Aladdin is my go-to movie when I'm either upset/excited/scared and need to fall asleep (I watched it the night before we got married hehe). Anyway, I just couldn't fall asleep. It all feels so unreal and I was just way too excited to calm down. I just kept thinking about how I want to decorate and imagining our lives in that home.

So there are still a few milestones we have to get through until the home is officially ours... home inspection & appraisal... but if everything goes according to plan we will be moving after Christmas.

Okay so here's the part where I'd normally post pictures of the house BUT... the people who live there now are umm, a little old and their decorations aren't the most "modern"... When I saw the pictures of the house I was originally unimpressed :) But it really is a gem. So, you'll just have to wait until January and maybe I'll even do another "video tour" of the place.

However I will tell you some of the key features :)

• 2,140 sq feet. 4 bedrooms (upstairs) 2 full baths upstairs, half bath downstairs
• It's in a culdesac and in a really good neighborhood about 5 min from where we live now
• Entry way has formal living room/dining room
• The kitchen is big with lots of counter space
• The kitchen opens up to another dining area and a living room with a fireplace and vaulted ceilings
• Upstairs has the 4 bedrooms that are all really good sized and the laundry room is upstairs which is PERFECT because I fold laundry in our bedroom.
• The master bedroom has a walk-in closet (HORRAY!) and the bathroom has two sinks (HORRAY!) with a skylight
• Hard wood floors & brand new carpet
• Good sized backyard with the cutest little toolshed that matches the house
• The owners are very particular and the home truly is in PERFECT condition. The only "improvement" we will need to make is to take down some lovely wallpaper in the kitchen & maybe replace some door knobs.

It was by far the best home we looked at and I'm just so glad it's going to be ours. We drove past it tonight and just can't WAIT to make it our home.

Right now, we barely fill up our 1000 sq foot apartment because we just don't own very much stuff, so the house is going to feel very lonely/empty for awhile...

I still can't get over the fact that Landon and I are building a home together. A home is where a family goes. I can't wait to fill up those rooms... and I'm not just talking about with furniture ;)

Okay okay... you deserve a few pictures for sticking around until the end :)