House Hunting Part 3

This is the third installment of the sappy saga that is a first home buyers house hunting experience. Lots of disappointment, but it will all be worth it!

You know how I’ve been complaining about house hunting woes? Welp, that’s over because we have finally secured our very first home! It’s kind of crazy how things work out.

 

Dave has been out of town off and on for most of a month and we knew he would be back this past weekend so of course we scheduled ourselves to look at some houses. We originally scheduled 4 houses, but then another house popped up on Zillow on Friday and we were able to get a showing in. So a total of 5 houses scheduled for Saturday (usually we end up looking at only 2-3 at a time).

Saturday: house hunting

We were the most excited going into it about the first house: another cookie cutter home, but it looked like it had tons of space (the master bedroom could fit a bed and a sectional couch..what.) and even had a 3 car garage that Dave has been looking for. We were doing the thing where we picture ourselves in that house, where we would put our stuff, the purpose of each room…and when we got there we were a little disappointed with the actual condition of the home.

The second house turned really awkward when we realized the owner was home and wasn’t aware we scheduled a showing. And he stayed while we walked around his house…super awkward because how do you say the carpet looks awful when the owner is chillin’ in the living room?

One of the next houses we arrived at reeked of cigarette smoke and there was another one I’m not sure why we didn’t like it, but I know we arrived at the last and fifth house, we were not super hopeful.

The House

Except for the fact that the garage was big. Dave was pretty excited about that since it hasn’t been easy to find an above average garage with our budget. When we walked in, it was pretty evident the house would need some work; it was an estate sale and the kids didn’t fix it up at all to sell…just moved the furniture out.

But the floors drew us in. Gorgeous old school (thin paneling) real cherry wood floors throughout the main level including two of the bedrooms. The next thing of note was that all of the major house things had been updated including the roof, heating, a/c, etc. (basically all of the super expensive stuff)

And the kitchen had been updated. That was a HUGE thing we said we did not want to have to update slash go without a kitchen for months. I mean I’ve been watching all of those HGTV shows on Netflix and the kitchen seems the worst to update. The other good thing was that I actually I loved that kitchen..the granite counters and white cabinets and the peninsula and the windows above the sink…

Then there was the big backyard with a deck and a seating area that looked like we could put a fire pit in the middle. Plus the location of the house is great, in a city just next to Omaha which has been rated as one of the top places to live in the country (crazy, right? I think it’s one of those best of both worlds—small town and city) with great schools and right next to a bunch of shopping (including a Target!!) and our gym.

To finish it off, we realized our sectional couch would fit perfectly in the living room. If you’ve ever had to move with a sectional couch, you probably get the struggle with figuring out where to put the dang thing. (never again.)

The Offer

We knew the house had already had 10 showings (in two days), so we had to act fast. This market is kind of insane right now and not at all in favor of the buyer. We sat down and wrote out a list of things we would need to fix on the house to see if it would be worth buying a less expensive house that needed work done (as opposed to one at the top of our budget that didn’t really need work).

While I was originally a little wary of going through any kind of home construction at all, even with updating all 3 bathrooms, the price was right. After a couple of hours, we let our agent know we wanted to put an offer in!

I would like to point out that this is the third house we had put an offer on. Unlike the first time, we knew that just putting in an offer didn’t mean we would get the house so there was lots of nervousness happening. Thankfully we had bought tickets to a movie so we could go take our mind off of things.

About an hour later we found out that the buyer was waiting on two other offers. Ugh. We originally offered asking price and half of closing costs, but decided to up our offer a little over asking and pay all of our own closing costs. It was still a fair price since the house was listed low to generate a lot of interest. (<-I feel like a freaking real estate pro saying stuff like that.)

Sunday: the waiting

Neither of us slept at all and were both super nervous Sunday. I may or may not have had a bit of a break down due to the stress of all of this. I mean we have looked at hundreds of houses online and probably 2-3 houses a week since November. It’s tough getting excited about a house only to find out it’s sold already or you’ve been outbid (the second house we didn’t even know there were other offers).

We decided to hang out a bit (it was Valentine’s Day afterall) and Dave brought me the last brownie batter heart shaped donut from Dunkin Donuts and a chai latte. He gets me.

 

The last brownie batter heart donut from @dunkindonuts. ?? Don’t ask how I got it… (You have to ask Dave. Duh. ?) #heartshaped #donuttime #sprinkles #valentine

A photo posted by Amanda DeWitt ??? (@semihealthnut) on Feb 14, 2016 at 1:38pm PST

So it was Netflix (a combination of home shows and 30 Rock), cleaning and food to pass the time until 5pm. We literally notified each other when 20 or 30 minutes had passed. The waiting part stinks! I don’t get how people give sellers longer than 24 hours!

At 4:30 we get a call. I literally remember where I was standing in the kitchen because I was so nervous/excited about what our agent was going to tell us. I really really didn’t want to get into a bidding war.

It turns out that the agent wanted more time. Womp womp

The seller was actually a group of siblings all living in different states and the other buyers had given them until 8pm to decide. Fine.

Killing More Time

We had plans to have dinner with Dave’s parents and watch the new episode of The Walking Dead (which was on at 8pm). 3 more hours to kill! Of course I had productive things I could have been doing the past two days, but did I mention that the waiting part is tough? The whole time you’re second guessing yourself and then also reassuring yourself that it will be okay either way when you know it really won’t be okay because you reeeeeally want that house.

Finally 7pm came around and we decided to tune into AMC to watch the previous Walking Dead episode. Distractions help, right??

About half-way through the best zombie show in the world, we got a phone call. I seriously thought they wouldn’t call until 8pm! Dave listens for a minute and all of a sudden his face lights up and he says, “We got it!”

After high fiving and hugging a million times, we called our family and told them the news. It seemed so surreal. I was at a point where I was anticipating the disappointment and was wondering how much more of this we could do.

[ check out the chandelier and 70s-ish entry way! I actually kind of like it…]

Now onto home ownership stuff! Thanks so much to everyone for being so supportive and encouraging the past couple of months when I was being all woe-is-me.

I hope the house hunting posts will help some of you future buyers prepare for the challenge that is ahead of you! Or possibly you at least got some amusement at how dramatic I am (for example crying in the grocery store parking lot).

Okay just wanted to share this news with you guys! I will have a Portland Foodie post coming at you this week!

 

PS In case you were wondering, yes, I’ve been obsessively pinteresting house decorating ideas like crazy. Here are some of the boards I’ve created if you’re into following that sort of thing.

Follow Diary of a Semi-Health Nut [ realistically healthy food + fitness ]’s board Home Decor [ Mid Century Modern ] on Pinterest.

Follow Diary of a Semi-Health Nut [ realistically healthy food + fitness ]’s board Home [ Bathroom Ideas ] on Pinterest.

Follow Diary of a Semi-Health Nut [ realistically healthy food + fitness ]’s board Home [ Kitchen Ideas ] on Pinterest.

Follow Diary of a Semi-Health Nut [ realistically healthy food + fitness ]’s board Home [ Bedroom Ideas ] on Pinterest.