The House Hunt

Unfortunately, this blog wasn't even a glimmer in my eye when the Mister and I embarked upon our house-hunting journey. So allow me to briefly recap.

The Mister and I moved to our neighborhood in November, 2009. It brought us out of the city and into the suburbs and introduced us to many wonderful things in life - including much shorter commutes.  We rented a townhouse at first, to ensure that 1) the suburban lifestyle was a keeper; and 2) the neighborhood we chose was a good one. Here's where our love-affair with our own slice of suburbia-heaven began:



Our Townhouse, Winter 2009



It was perfect - a two-bedroom, two and a half bathroom, three level townhouse. We signed on for a one-year lease, during which time we embraced suburban life, became a married couple, and fell in LOVE with our neighborhood. After we switched over to a month-to-month lease, thanks to the generosity and understanding of our wonderful landlords, the house-hunt began.

First, we found this beauty a few streets up in the neighborhood.

We really liked it, even though it was a three bedroom (we really wanted four) and was going to take LOADS of paint to get rid of the crazy colors it had going on. (Not to mention the green shag carpeting and purple walls in the master bedroom. But, I digress.) It had a finished basement, tons of space, and it was in our neighborhood. So, we signed a million papers and put down our first offer.

Unfortunately, someone beat us to the punch, so we had to settle for being the "backup offer" with very little chance of actually moving forward. (This house was a short sale, so even if the first offer fell through, we still had to start the long short-sale process. Bummer.)

We kept looking, and as time went on, we even felt brave enough to venture outside our little neighborhood and into some of the close-by ones down the street. Nothing was coming on the market in our neighborhood, so as much as we wanted to stay there, we felt we had to broaden the search into other subdivisions. It was in one of those neighborhoods that we found this:

It was damn-near perfect. Four bedrooms, finished basement with a 5th bedroom, on a double cul-de-sac, nice little front porch, fenced back yard with a nice deck...on paper, it WAS perfect. But something didn't feel quite right. Nothing we could put a finger on, but it didn't feel like home. But, we ignored that and pulled our back-up offer to make an offer on this place. Let the short sale process begin.

It seemed like an eternity - we knew the short sale process was long, but that didn't make it any easier - before we heard back. As luck would have it, however, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I was sleeping in one Saturday morning, and as I was leisurely waking up I decided to check the new house listings for the day. And then...I screamed.

My dream house, my favorite house, the house I coveted from the moment we moved into the townhouse...it was on the market. And it was in our price range.

See, this house was directly across the street from our townhouse circle. I, very literally, drove by it every single time I came or went. And. I. Loved. It. There's something about a white house with black shutters that gets me every time. So, one emergency call to our realtor later (bless her), we were walking across the street to tour the "dream" house.

While you may think this is a no-brainer, it actually wasn't. We found things about the house we didn't like. We nit-picked. We tried to convince ourselves that we should just hang in there with the first house, instead of starting the process all over again. After all, the first house was on a quieter street, had hardwood floors, and it already had a finished basement - all things the "dream" house lacked. So, we turned our backs on it and shoved on with the one in the other neighborhood.

And then, while on Christmas vacation, we heard from the bank. Despite us offering full asking price and probably more than what we should have, they countered us. By a LOT! This spurred us into action. As we drove back into town, we met our realtor at each house and walked through them, back to back, hoping it would help us make a decision. After, we stood on the front yard of the "dream" house, looked at each other, and knew. (The Mister later confessed that he was never really in love with that first house, but didn't want to spoil my excitement. Now that's love.) Within 24 hours we turned down the bank's counter offer, offered a "competitive" offer on the dream house - and had it accepted!! Three months later, and a (relatively short) short-sale process later, we walked across the street and through our new front door to start our lives in our "dream" house.

And we've been tackling projects ever since.