We are buying a house.

Oh my gosh.

We did it…well, almost. I guess it’s not *technically* done until closing, which is set for October 6th.

But most everything looks good to go, so yay!!

Quite honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared or happy in my entire life. I can’t wait to make the house our own, but I am also terrified of being a homeowner.

Before I go into the details of the house, I want to share what I learned during this process. I won’t go into loans and all that sort of stuff because that is something that will be unique to each individual, but I will share things that I feel everyone can appreciate. Here we go.

1.) PATIENCE. I almost was thisclose to giving up the search when our first offer on another house was rejected. Like seriously. I was devastated. No one likes rejection, and I sure didn’t like feeling like I was dumped by a guy I really liked. So, luckily, we took about a week off to gather our thoughts and we got back to looking. We saw another 3-4 houses that were AWFUL and overpriced. Then it happened. We found THE house. We just knew. I never believed people when they told me you just “know” when you walk into the house, but trust me, we knew. Daniel was ready to put in the offer the second we left the house, but I was hungry. I have priorities. So, we put in the offer the next day, the seller accepted, and the rest is history.

Looking at so many houses also put in the situation of knowing when we found a real gem or a really good deal. And then we jumped feet first into the process and felt no regrets.

It felt right.

2.) LUCK. Yes, I firmly believe luck has a little to do with the process. But maybe it is more fate than it is luck, but to me they went hand-in-hand for us. We happened to be lounging around late one Saturday evening and noticed a NEW listing on Realtor.com (which we stalked OBSESSIVELY) and the house looked ok from the outside. The specs were nice. It was in the budget. Cool. We saw it Monday, put the offer Tuesday, and the real estate company didn’t even have time to put up a FOR SALE sign. We snagged it up quickly. Here’s where I think luck came into play. So, patience + luck=house!

3.) PRICE. Some houses are overpriced. Ok, most. Few houses are underpriced. We found that our house was thought to be worth in the $150K+ range, but the seller just wants out, and therefore priced it to sell. This means we offered asking price and asked for the patio set to be thrown in (it’s really nice). I know many think we probably are foolish for giving her the asking price, but we know the house is worth a lot more because of the amount of houses we’ve seen. Yes, HGTV shows lead you to believe that you can get thousands off a house, and maybe in those larger markets you can, but here in Beeville, someone probably would have gone over asking price, and we didn’t want to take that chance. Therefore, know what a house is TRULY worth to you and compare that to what you can/want to pay. We are 100% happy with what we’re paying, and it’s still well below what we budgeted.

There ya have it- the 3 most important things I feel a buyer should know. Be patient, what’s meant to be will be (whether you like it at the moment or not), be persistent, and know a good price when you see one. I don’t want to say things like have a great agent, yada yada because I felt our agent was just there to show us houses. At the end of the day, she basically did what we asked her to do, so we had to be educated, smart and decisive. None of those have anything to do with our agent. If you happen to have a fantastic agent, more power to you, but we just didn’t find our agent really made a difference during the process. We found the houses, she set up the tours, we told her our offer, she typed it. End of story.

Now let’s look at our future home. I have BIG plans for this home! We plan to be here a long time.

This is the outside of the home. We plan on chopping down that tree because our inspection report told us to. I would love to plant a lovely flower garden where the rocks are. Also, the shutters and trim need an update. We’re thinking black shutters and a taupe/ivory trim.

You walk into the front door and it’s a little foyer area, which I LOVE. I hate houses where you step right into the living room, just not what I want in my home. That light fixture will most definitely be replaced.

 

You keep walking straight and you end up in the living room with a lovely fireplace.

Beamed/vaulted ceilings.

Wood paneling…yuck. This has got to go! For now, I’ll probably just paint it.

French doors lead outside into the backyard. I’ll show you the backyard later. You can also see the patio set I negotiated into the deal. Squee!! Oh, and the doors have the blinds IN the door. Awesome!

Then you walk into the newly renovated kitchen. Very traditional for my modern taste, but Daniel and I have some ideas of how to modernize the space.

Cute breakfast nook with a bay window. Perfect spot for a banquete, right?!

Laundry room.

Hallway leading to all 3 bedrooms (at the end is the master bedroom) The hallway could use better lighting because that light is pretty awful.

Nice updated bathroom. Traditional, but nice.

Sliding glass doors in the master lead to the patio.

My lovely patio set. <3

Lovely pond with koi fish in the backyard. It’s lit at night! I can’t wait to sit out here and sip some wine.

Beautiful trees create a natural fence/perimeter on the side of our house/land. The house sits on 0.95 acres. Riding lawn mower here we come.

Well, there’s a little tour of our humble home. It may not be grand or super luxe, but it’ll be ours. We look forward to making it modern and gorgeous while being thrifty and creative. I hope you all will stick along for the adventure!

I seemed to have forgotten to snap pics of the dining room/office, but I’ll show you those the next time we get to be in the house!