It's a Big Day!

I can't believe we are actually closing on our house today! I am going to be a homeowner?? I am actually really nervous, but excited as well. Wish us luck today! Is it crazy to take my camera to closing? I am so addicted to my camera!

The Mortgage

Last night we went and got a mortgage for our potential house. That was a lot of paperwork! And there is more at closing! I think we got a good deal, the rate was really low, and then we bought it down some more so that it is basically ridiculously low. Our payment is going to be like $30 more than what we would be paying here for rent after the construction discount goes away at the end of our lease. And now we will get a whole house out of it!

The whole thing is still a little daunting, big commitment and all. But I am getting cautiously excited. We still have a long ways to go before we hit closing though.

Inspection Today

We had the inspection of the house today. It took 3 hours but it went really well. There were mainly only small minor issues. Nothing to really worry about. Now we just have to negotiate some repairs. And wait on the results of the radon test.

Oh and we sat and talked with the owner and his mom for a while and meet their dog Daisy. Turns out I was right about the Sears house thing!! And she is willing to give me all the candles she has to put in the windows at Christmas!

No place like Sears?

I was googling the style of our potential house the other night "Dutch Colonial Revival" and a link came up to a Sears catalogue home kit offered in 1923. The house we are buying was built in 1924. It has the same layout as the ad, just mirrored. The bathrooms are in the same place, and same layout, the rooms are the same size. It even has that triple mirror closet in the master. I think we are buying a sears house!

Update on the House

It looks like we might get the house! We have agreed on a price and closing date. Now we just need to get through the inspection and financing (and writing that HUGE check for the downpayment, ouch!). If all goes well the house will be ours by the end of April. Our lease isn't up until the end of June so we have two months to strip wallpaper, paint walls, rip up carpet and have the floors refinished! Oh yeah and move in! Last night after dinner we stopped by Lowe's to start arguing over paint colors!

You might be wondering

At this point you might be wondering why on earth I haven't updating you on what is going on with the house that we put an offer on back on Valentine's Day. In a word? Nothing. Apparently someone else wanted to see it this past weekend (oddly enough right when we were driving by to show my mother and father in law the house) so the owner is waiting to see if they come back with an offer before he decides on ours.

Maybe we are taking this the wrong way being on the buying end but we are really annoyed that we put in a fair offer to try to save time and have things settled and now he is playing games and making us wait. It has really taken the wind from my sails and most of the fun out of this house hunting experience!

Oh well I suppose we will see what happens and then decide if we are still interested. I suppose he can still accept our offer but we are not legally bound to buy his house at that price anymore if he does accept. The offer is long since expired.

Too Much HGTV

I had HGTV on in the background all weekend, while I did laundry, cleaned the apartment, edited photos, surfed the web, ate meals pretty much all waking hours. I think this was initially in excitement that we made our first offer on a house. After Sunday passed and we still heard nothing, and then Monday ticked by without a peep from our agent it was more of a punishment. Needless to say all last night I dreamed about home renovations. I think it is time to switch to another channel, at least until some new houses come on the market here and I can start dreaming of buying a house again.

Waiting Stinks

Yesterday we met with our agent to draw up an offer for the house. Based on that we are supposed to hear back today but it is getting a little late now. Late usually isn't good for me on most things. I tried to cheer myself up by looking through the MLS listings to see what to go see next, there pretty much isn't anything left! I am getting rather cranky! Oh well if we don't get it, it wasn't meant to be. And I am sure more houses will come on the market this spring right?

About the House

It isn't really fair of me to drop a bomb like that we might have found a house to offer on and just leave it like that. I would love to show you a picture of the front of the house, but well, that is a silly idea on the world wide web, safety first. I will tell you it is a white sided Dutch Colonial Revival built in 1924, about 2100 sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 1 car garage. It is very cute inside, it has the kind of character we were looking for in a house. And if we get it for the price we want (the same as the house across the street is about to close for, which is a fairly dead on comp) it is very affordable for us. Which is quite important, the last thing we want is to be house poor.

And I will show you some pictures of the inside, since you won't be seeing any of our stuff anyway.

The Kitchen


Dining room


Living room


Entryway


That is pretty much the first floor, minus the powder room and laundry area. Pretty nice right? Well we think so. It's time to talk money with the mortgage guy. Yikes!

Blogging Anywhere

Now that I have this iphone and my new blogging app I can post from anywhere. Right now we are in the checkout line at Wegman's. By the way we might have found a house we like but nothing has been done about it yet.

Thinking Ahead

Last night on the drive home from work I listed to Christmas music (which I have only done one other time so far this year so I am doing well for me!). While I was listening I was thinking about all the Christmases to come and imagining them in a house that Mike and I own, and I realized I HAVE to have an old house, it gave me butterflies thinking about living in one and really making it my own. Even if we have to wait and save up for another couple of years.

In other news I will officially have a new boss on the 17th and will start focusing on a new area at work (the brand new Flu building that will be doing its first production runs in the spring). Hopefully that will improve the job situation and I will be happier there!

Which one to pick?

After the poor performance of the first agent we worked with I am a little gun-shy when it comes to choosing agent number 2. Both ladies we met with were very nice.

One has sent me one email since we met, with a bunch of listings that while a few were overpriced (and we didn't tell her a max as we haven't totally settled on that yet, we really need to sit down with Quicken now that we are here in PA and can see how much the cost of living really is) the houses were otherwise really what we wanted. Pre WWII, historic charm. Some of them were in towns that are probably too far to drive to my job from but it is nice to see them anyway.

The other agent has sent us several sets of listings (probably just put in an auto-email on a search) and has called me at least 3 times since we met with her last Monday. The listings she has sent have not been as . . . well specific to our wants as the other agents. They include things I flat out said I didn't want (split levels, split entries). I just feel like she is a little pushy, and that is good when she is selling something for you, but we need a patient agent, I just don't know if she is.

Mike of course doesn't care, though he seems to like the second woman better (he hasn't been fielding the many calls and emails though). I don't know how to decide.

House Hunting Standstill

We still haven't made any progress on looking for a house, for multiple reasons.
1.) Have yet to find a new agent, we are meeting with one next Monday and maybe one on Thursday (but she wants to meet at 7:30 and to be honest sad as this sounds, that is late for me, I get up a 4:30 on Fridays to run, I need to be in bed by 8:30 to 9pm!
2.) We don't know where we want to live, Bethlehem, Easton, Nazareth nothing is really calling to us, in fact this whole area is in question at this point
3.) I don't really love my new job, in fact some days I really hate it, do we want to commit to staying in this area for at least 5-10 years because we bought a house? Are there other companies I could work for near here?

Indecision stresses me out. . .

We decided

We are going to look for a new agent. Maybe I am blowing it out of proportion but I don't want to pay $10,000 to someone I am not happy with, and I really want to trust and like our realtor.

Hopefully we can find someone we like better. Good thing we have a lot of time.

Our first day of house shopping

Last night we met our realtor at 6 pm to go look at a couple of houses.

The first one was a foreclosure, it was beat up! The carpet was nasty, the house was dirty, switchplate covers and shower doors were missing. It was fairly cheap but they would have needed to drop at least another 30K to make up for all the work that needed to be done.

The second was another foreclosure, but it was in better shape. I wasn't a fan of the laminate floors and the kitchen needed some work, the deal breaker was the power lines that literally ran across the back yard, as in if you stood in the yard and looked up, they were right over your head. Again, price wasn't low enough to make up for that!

The third house was one we didn't want to see, our agent is the selling agent on it, and he has been talking about it since the first day we met him. It is lacking a LOT in terms of curb appeal. Of course compared to the other two it was very nice (was that his plan all along?), but that doesn't change its location, and bad front door placement. It was a short-sale and he kept letting us know that if we wanted it we needed to move on it asap, umm we never said we wanted it! It was okay on the inside, but it was only the third house we have ever seen!?!? You really think we are going to put an offer in on that?

I can't decide if I want to keep looking with this agent or find someone else. That whole night just feels sneaky to me, like he was really trying to get us to make an offer on a house I said I don't want!

We need to get out

We really need to get out of this apartment complex, aside from all the stairs, the fact I can't paint, the lack of storage, the quickly filling up parking lot, barking dogs on the second floor . . . tonight I was watching TV and I had to get up and shut the door to the deck because two people were out in the courtyard area with their dogs letting them howl and bark at each other for a good 20 minutes while it echoed and bounced off all the buildings. Nice, such kind neighbors! Oh and did I mention that the fire department was here last night?

Making Progress

On Saturday Mike and I sat down with a local real estate agent to see if we wanted to use him to help us buy our first house. I don't know if I am 100% happy with him, but I don't know how much I will really like a real estate agent. They have to be a bit of a sales person, and that is not my favorite personality. Anyway he sent us a list of 65 homes on the MLS that seem to meet our criteria. I guess we should start looking at them. But for some reason, though I have been looking forward to buying a house for years now, I am all of the sudden nervous and worried. Maybe it is the crazy economy, maybe it is just that this is a monumental decision, maybe I am just too risk-adverse. I guess it doesn't hurt to look right? And we do need to start deciding what we can get for our money and what we are willing to compromise on and what we aren't.