New Home

Hubs and I bought a new home! YAY!


It was quite an adventure buying our first home, but I think we were pretty lucky how smoothly the process went.

1. Number of houses we looked at before we found our dream house:
           We started looking around about 6 months before we finally bought our house. And it was probably the 4th or 5th time our realtor took us looking. I scoured Zillow and Realtor.com daily ( I actually found the house and asked her to show it to us).

2. Our wishlist:
        -   $150k or less
        -  3 bedroom/ 2 bath
        -   garage
        -   fireplace
        -   good yard
        -   good kitchen
        -   not necessarily "open" floor plan, but had to have a good flow.
        - Newer than 1960... preferably 1990 or newer.
        - No HOA, but good neighborhood

3. What we got:
       - on budget
       - 4 bedroom/2 bath (The master was not as spacious as some but the rest of the house made up for it, plus it was adequate for our needs)
       - garage
       - fireplace
       - huge yard (with some drainage issues that we will fix)
       - great kitchen
       - mudroom/ pantry/ laundry room
       - logical flow
       - 1975 but well maintained, cosmetic issues only
       - Okay neighborhood, Great Street, no HOA

4. Thoughts about the process:
          Before we were ready to buy I had found my dream house (but it did have an HOA). It was hard to let it go, but it helped me know the feeling I was looking for when I walked in the house. For a while I was starting to get discouraged, because it seemed like we just were not finding anything we felt was home and I wondered if it even existed or if we needed to just find a house and try to make it work, but when we walked in this house, it felt like home. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it met every single requirement on our list, and just felt like we belonged to each other. I was so glad that we didn't settle for something that didn't meet our needs. Luckily we weren't in any particular rush, so we could take our time, pray and wait for the right house. Kinda like dating :)

5. Doing your homework:
          Hubs and I tried to read up as much as possible, but honestly it was so overwhelming that we just tried to find people that were kind, helpful and trustworthy and get their advice. (We received a lot of advice, solicited and unsolicited- there's more than one way to skin a cat but apparently everyone thinks theirs is the best way) We may or may not have gotten the best deal ever, but we worked with people we trusted, could call anytime and get answers, the process was smooth, we had peace of mind, we got everything we asked for within our budget -  and that to me is priceless.

     
Before and after pictures of our home (So far!) found HERE.