New House

This post will be a lot shorter than the one about selling our old house.  

About a month before we were really ready to sell our house, we saw a house on Zillow that we thought would be perfect for us.  (We had been stalking Zillow for over 6 months at this point.)  It was on the upper end of our range, but it had what we wanted and was in one of our preferred neighborhoods.  When we called our agent to ask about a showing, we found out that it was already under contract.  Bummer!  Every house that we looked at after that was compared to the elusive "Honeysuckle" house (that was the name of the street it was on). 

Our agent set us up to get notified of listings matching our criteria as soon as they hit MLS and we got a log-in to Ebby's house search feature.  We checked and waited.  One day a house popped up that seemed to be a good fit and was in one of our preferred areas, so we asked for a showing.  The morning of the showing another house also popped up that seemed really nice.  It's in a really nice neighborhood near us that we had kind of ruled out for a few reasons, but we were interested enough that we called our agent and asked if we could also pop over and see that one as well.  He got it all arranged - yay!  And, one Saturday morning we set out for our first day of "real" house shopping. 

We met our agent at the first house and he explained that the house was listed at an artificially low price to generate a bunch of offers which would be selected from at the end of their offer period.  Weird, but okay.  We walked around the house and there were just a lot of things that weren't quite right and some things that needed to be fixed.  The dialogue went something like this, "Well, mmm... maybe we could move this door, close off this wall.  The washer and dryer are in the garage, huh, okay.  Why are there shoes in the pantry?  Wow, that's a lot of concrete out back and we don't have a boat like they do.  Oh, yeah, with that giant black stain, this carpet will have to be replaced.  Oh, and the banister is loose."  As we left that house we thought, yeah, I guess we could make it work.  We could fit ourselves in there.  

We went on to the second house.  The curb appeal was better.  We walked in and instantly felt like it was a vast improvement over the first house.  We walked around and checked things off of our list.  Office space, check.  Formal dining room, nice to have.  Gas range and fireplace, yippee!  Good closet and storage space, check.  Extra room for play space, check.  Guest bedroom, check.  Cute rooms for the girls, check.  The sellers actually had two girls, so it was so easy to picture our girls there. Neighborhood pools, parks, and a jogging/walking trail, check, check, check.  Nice backyard with a covered patio, mostly check (patio is a bit small and could go for a build out).  There's neutral paint colors throughout the house (other than the girls rooms whose cutesy paint jobs actually really work for us).  This house is really move in ready for us and we love it.  We sit in the living room of the house and tell our agent that we want it. 

In an effort to get our offer in as soon as possible, we get our pre-approval for our loan.  We put a non-contingent contract on the house.  For those that may not know, this means that our purchase of the home is not contingent on our house selling.  After a little back and forth on some price and terms, we have a contract.  Very exciting and very nerve racking - the race is on to sell our house.  

Fortunately, everything worked out.  Inspections, appraisals, requested maintenance, closing on the other house, loan stuff... it all works out.  Praise the Lord!  

We are in our new house and love it.  It has been such a blessing to us.  The girls love their rooms.  I am so excited for our little family to grow up here.  It's been a lot of answered prayers.  

Home Sweet Home!