To All The Houses I Loved Before
This year, my husband and I decided to finally make the jump and buy a new and nicer house, closer to where he works. Right now he’s driving an hour to work, 5 days a week. Wowzer! Cutting that drive down to 15-30 minutes was going to make a huge difference!
What we didn’t anticipate was that, apparently, we picked the worst time in the last decade to buy a house (literally!) Who knew it was a seller’s market? Cause we didn’t. We also didn’t know that April is the WORST month of the year to buy, followed by May. Good times. Not until we started losing houses in multiple offer situations left and right did we realize we had to catch up to reality real fast.
After seeing 34 houses and putting offers on SIX of them, we finally got an offer accepted! But man, was that a journey. So many ups and down. So much doubt and fear and anger and ugh, not-funness. So this is my little slideshow of all the houses we missed out on, and how we ended up with the right house (cause that’s kind of a funny story on its own)
Once Upon A Time...
Our family finally got on board with the let's-buy-a-house idea and went to look at houses (an hour to an hour and a half away!) the second week in April. Not super committed to buying just yet, but willing to look. Then we found a house that hubby and his Dad LOVED. Apparently it reminded them of one of my husband’s childhood homes (they moved around tons but this was one of the few they actually owned and was apparently the nicest house they had) It was also pretty massive, with 3 big living spaces and 4 bedrooms. Size wise, it was really by far the most perfect house we’d find in any of our searches (we required 4 beds and at least 2 living spaces)
House #1
To me this was a decent house, definitely had the space we needed but I wasn’t overly in love. Hubby sold me by telling me the formal living area would be mine. Dude, did I have all the ideas for that little room (it was going to be an Instagram and Pinterest worthy BOOKISH room, in my mind. With book stack floating shelves, and a book page wreath in the center. Several book shelves, my desk and of course some kind of fun seating etc etc)
We could have gotten that house if we’d know what the market was really like. But we ended up wasting time bartering over price and which left the door open for a second offer which won out.
(Update: this house sold for over asking which surprises me even now. We were offering a good chunk under... We were soooo oblivious to the market
What we didn’t anticipate was that, apparently, we picked the worst time in the last decade to buy a house (literally!) Who knew it was a seller’s market? Cause we didn’t. We also didn’t know that April is the WORST month of the year to buy, followed by May. Good times. Not until we started losing houses in multiple offer situations left and right did we realize we had to catch up to reality real fast.
After seeing 34 houses and putting offers on SIX of them, we finally got an offer accepted! But man, was that a journey. So many ups and down. So much doubt and fear and anger and ugh, not-funness. So this is my little slideshow of all the houses we missed out on, and how we ended up with the right house (cause that’s kind of a funny story on its own)
Once Upon A Time...
Our family finally got on board with the let's-buy-a-house idea and went to look at houses (an hour to an hour and a half away!) the second week in April. Not super committed to buying just yet, but willing to look. Then we found a house that hubby and his Dad LOVED. Apparently it reminded them of one of my husband’s childhood homes (they moved around tons but this was one of the few they actually owned and was apparently the nicest house they had) It was also pretty massive, with 3 big living spaces and 4 bedrooms. Size wise, it was really by far the most perfect house we’d find in any of our searches (we required 4 beds and at least 2 living spaces)
House #1
To me this was a decent house, definitely had the space we needed but I wasn’t overly in love. Hubby sold me by telling me the formal living area would be mine. Dude, did I have all the ideas for that little room (it was going to be an Instagram and Pinterest worthy BOOKISH room, in my mind. With book stack floating shelves, and a book page wreath in the center. Several book shelves, my desk and of course some kind of fun seating etc etc)
We could have gotten that house if we’d know what the market was really like. But we ended up wasting time bartering over price and which left the door open for a second offer which won out.
(Update: this house sold for over asking which surprises me even now. We were offering a good chunk under... We were soooo oblivious to the market
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