Houses, Houses and More Houses

Excited.  Overwhelmed.  Shocked.  Excited.  Disbelief.  Exhilarated.  Freaking out.  Excited.

 

That’s the best way for me to describe what I’m currently feeling.  I’m sure there’s a better way to articulate everything, but that’s about all I can do at the moment.

For the past 4-5 months, David and I have casually been looking at houses.  Over the past 3-4 weeks, we seriously started to look.  I wanted one thing:  a one story, front office for me to work out of, open floor concept.  A small house means less to clean.  David wanted another thing:  a house with lots of room, a three car garage, something we could grow into and still have some extra room if needed.

Everyday we browsed and searched HAR to see if there were new listings, listings we overlooked, price drops, etc.  I’m going to fast forward to last Friday.  We sent our realtor two new houses we wanted to look at (one I picked out and one David picked out), as well as requested to go back to a house we had seen previously but wanted to go back during the daylight.

We went to David’s pick first.  A two story, five bedroom, open concept home with LOTS of room to grow in to.  I went in to this house thinking I would HATE it.  Far from it.  I ended up liking it.  But it was so far from what I thought I originally wanted that I wasn’t 100% set on it being the one.  I just knew I was all of the sudden open to a two story home with some extra room to spare.

We went to the second house (my pick), which was a two story home with a pool and the cutest front porch with a swing that you ever did see.  I can’t believe how quickly I hated this house.  The ceilings were low, it felt small, and just seeing all the pool equipment had me nervous about having to care for a pool.  It was a quick and firm “no” for me.

Then we went to the third house, the one we had previously seen before.  We still liked it, but the location wasn’t as good as the first and after seeing the first house it seemed a bit small.

We went home, discussed it, slept on it and in the morning decided to put in an offer on the first house (David’s pick) and unfortunately, we were passed over due to another offer.  😦

 

Over the weekend we scoured HAR, we drove around the three neighborhoods in Kingwood we were set on purchasing in.  Anytime we went by a house with a for sale sign, we looked it up on HAR, went and looked in the windows (only of the vacant houses….we aren’t THAT creepy!), and we fell more and more in love with these neighborhoods.  We kept comparing every house we saw to the one we lost out on Saturday morning.  Nothing in our price range was even close to the amount of space it had, the open floor concept we wanted, or it needed much more major updates than we were willing to take on.  Everything that came even close to what we wanted was out of our budget.

We still wanted that house.  The house that had the space David wanted (that I didn’t know I wanted until we went to see it), had the home-y feel when you drive up to it, located in the most perfect location we could dream of in the neighborhood we LOVE.  The house I didn’t know I wanted until I saw it.  And didn’t know how much I wanted it, until I saw everything comparable to it and how they didn’t compare.  The house that although needs a bit of updating and will take us a year or two to get exactly how we want, is the house that just FELT right when we walked in.

During this time over the weekend that we were (unsuccessfully) looking for other houses after we lost the first, we noticed that the listing for the house that we lost had still not changed from it’s “Active” status to a “pending” status.

All I can say is, thank goodness I married a persistent and (although in this case it worked to our favor) sometimes stubborn man.  David would not let it go.  After several calls from our realtor, to their realtor, to their realtor telling us the house was “sold” to us coming back asking why it was still an “active” listing, we finally got their realtor to tell us that there was a small hiccup but they couldn’t give out details other than to say to write an offer and submit it.  We upped our offer and our realtor submitted it.

We then found out that this house is on the verge of foreclosure and the only way to make this happen is if we do a quick sell.  Quick sells are usually 30-45 days.  This quick sell needed to be done in TWO WEEKS or it would be foreclosed upon.  Yikes!  I have to say, one of the best things our realtor did, was hook us up with the best financial guide.  He guaranteed us it could be done in two weeks.  (The couple who originally had the offer on the house couldn’t get their loan to come through and finalized in that time…thus the “hiccup”)  Even with upping our offer, this house was a STEAL.  Once we fix it up, it’s going to be worth so much more!  I’ll finally get to fulfill my HGTV loving dreams!!

All of this to say, holy cow!  We could be homeowners and moving in TWO weeks!  I’m so not prepared!  Although we want to move and can’t wait to get out of our current living situation, we thought it would be 2-6 months before we actually moved.  Nope, two weeks.  Two weeks.  Between work, and going back and forth with our agent, and our finance guru, and getting papers together, plus being sick, we have to figure out how to pack up our life.  And soon!

Y’all…I’m gonna be honest with you.  Big purchases scare the shizzz out of me.  When I bought my first car David and I had just started dating (my first auto car was my brothers old truck so I never had to pay for a brand new car before this), and he kept asking me why I wasn’t more excited about a new car.  All I kept thinking was, this is a big purchase!  And everyone says owning a home is basically owning a money pit!   A car is like child’s play compared to purchasing a house!  I’m a little nervous.  A bit anxious.  A lot excited!  I’m the worrier in our relationship.  David is the one who gets excited for things, and has to remind me to calm down and not worry about things we can’t control.  We balance each other out, and thankfully he brings me back down to earth and is making sure I’m enjoying what’s ahead for us.

I can’t believe this is happening so fast.  In a way, it’s fitting for us though.  Both David and I are not the most patient people, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

I’m assuming the blog will be filled with future before and afters as we work to slowly but surely fix up our new home.  It’ll be a gradual process, but one that we will hopefully enjoy!