Jenn & I Purchased Our First Home
If you haven't read The Road Leading Up to Purchasing Our First Home you should do that before starting to read this post.
After two years of saving, planning, and researching it was time. On November 26th (the day before Thanksgiving) we went with our realtor to view the house that Jenn ran up to our apartment to tell me about. It was a gorgeous sunny day and the community could not have looked anymore stunning. We toured the home which was empty but for a little bit of rented furniture. The house was perfect. It's a two bedroom detached condo, a little over a 1000 sq. ft with an awesome outdoor flex space, and a ton of natural light. I think we both knew even before walking into the house that we would probably put an offer down. However after a few seconds in the house we both knew instantly that we absolutely wanted this house.
I'll never forget talking to our realtor in the master bedroom of our house about potential offers and seeing Jenn who was beaming from ear to ear. There was something not only about this house but this moment that just felt right. He told us to sleep on it and let him know the following day whether we wanted to put an offer in or not. So we did exactly that. We prayed and prayed and prayed some more and when we got home from my parents on Thanksgiving night we signed our initial offer for the house.
On Black Friday evening (right after getting out of seeing The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt 1) we heard from our realtor that they had counter offered and barely budged from the homes listing price. As any first time home buyer we were disappointed but after a lot of discussion we decided to counter-offer again very close with our initial offer. The sellers came back with a final offer finally lowering from their list price. On November 30th (Sunday) we accepted their offer. I'll never forget watching football and seeing Jenn's face light up when our realtor told her the incredible news. We both started hugging and screaming and crying and laughing and every sort of emotion that happens after a stressful waiting game. It was one of those moments that on one hand I would have loved to have captured but on the other I'm glad its something that we can both cherish. After the initial shock wore off we drove over to our newly purchased home and stalked the neighborhood.
What we didn't know (and I guess should have expected) was that Sunday November 30th was just the calm before the storm. Starting on Monday December 1st everything started moving at insane speeds. We got an absolute ton of paperwork on that first day and spent the next two weeks reading, re-reading, signing, initialing, and asking a ton of questions to make sure we turned in all the paperwork on-time. Our dining room table was in disarray during this time with paperwork everywhere which I know drove Jenn crazy.
On December 6th we had our home inspected which was the first time we actually got to spend an extended period of time in our new home. The inspection itself went extremely well. There were no major problems to speak of just some minor things that we eventually got the sellers to cover. We loved our time in the house and it only reaffirmed that we made the right decision. Both the inspector and our realtor could not raving about how great of shape our new home was in.
The next big milestone came on December 10th when our loan was approved. We had a pre-approval going into the home shopping but to get that final approval that our loan was good to go was a nice comfort. We also found out that day that the appraisal came back for exactly what we purchased the house for, and that everything was moving forward smoothly. Since then its been more paperwork, more dialogue with the escrow, our lender, and our realtor. Things have gone exceptionally smooth the entire process. There hasn't been any major stumbling blocks or hurdles we've had to overcome.
As of today we're days away from closing escrow, handing over the rest of our down-payment and getting the keys to our new house. Its sort of surreal. The idea that we were able to purchase a house on our own by just tightening up the hatches and setting a plan in place is one of my most proud accomplishments in my life. It took a huge shift in the way Jenn and I did our finances and planned for the future. Our lives have been better for it. I'm so excited to see what this next chapter in our life has in store for us and wWednesday cannot come soon enough!
