1st time home-buyer’s credit, here I come!!

*Jumps up and clicks heels*

Guess what guys?? We just bought a house!

Well, mostly. We still need to do the home inspection and stuff. But if all goes well, Chewie and I will be proud home owners on April 27th.

So you wanna know about the house? Okay, I’ll tell you.

We started looking online at houses a while ago, but it was only a half-hearted attempt. With the wedding and all that stuff coming up, we didn’t want to spend a bunch of money, or put money towards a house that needs to go towards the wedding.

We were also pretty limited in what we were looking for. We need to stay within a certain finite geographic area so we are in close proximity to Isaiah and his school. We also only wanted an end-unit townhouse. Buying a full-on single family home seemed daunting. I don’t think we are quite ready to invest in lawn mowers, snow blowers, roofing, siding, etc. But a townhouse seemed perfect – some of the benefits of renting like not having to mow the lawn or worry about major exterior repairs; but yet we would actually be paying a mortgage.

The deal is though, that we really like our rental townhome now, and needed an extra great opportunity to encourage us to leave. We also refuse to spend more on a mortgage than we are currently spending on rent, which is $1,300 per month. So like I said, our opportunities were pretty limited.

And then I found this townhouse. This beautiful, end-unit townhouse about 5 minutes from where we currently live. And the price was unbelievable. It’s a bank owned property. So based on the listing price, I just knew something major was wrong with it. But, even in spite of that I couldn’t help falling in love. Here is what it has that I love:

• End unit
• 2,000 finished sq ft (about 700 sq ft bigger than what we have now)
• 9 ft ceilings with a race-track finish on the main floor
• Vaulted ceilings in the bedrooms
• Loads of natural light and east and south facing windows
• 3 bathrooms ( 1 and 1/2 more than we have now)
• 4 bedrooms (2 more than we have now) – and room to grow as a family so we can confidently live there the next 3 to 5 years
• A spacious master suite with private master bathroom and huge walk-in closet
• His and her sinks in master bedroom
• Raised countertops throughout house
• Hardwood floors in kitchen
• Cherry cabinets in kitchen
• Granite countertops
• Formal dining room
• Washer and dryer upstairs
• Huge room for Isaiah
• One of the bedrooms has about 6 windows on two walls, makes a great sun-room and den for now…
• Space for Madaya to have her own room when she visits
• New construction – built in 2004
• All updated fixtures and lighting
• Great location near shopping, work, Isaiah
• Little patch of grass and patio on the front/side of townhouse for Ruby and Isaiah – french doors from dining room leading to patio
• Awesome price! The townhouse is selling for exactly HALF of what it sold for the last time it was on the market 3 years ago. Great opportunity to earn some equity for a single family home down the line as the market slowly comes back. Also, our monthly mortgage including principle, interest, taxes, insurance, and association fees is about $200 LESS than what we pay now – MORE MONEY FOR THE WEDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yeah. This townhouse that I saw online was the reason we decided to start considering buying a home a bit more seriously. I told Chewie that if opportunities like this exist in the market we should look. Otherwise, a year or two from now, we may kick ourselves when interest rates go a bit higher and the market shifts. So, this townhouse was the first we saw in person.

And believe it or not, there wasn’t anything wrong with it (that I know of) that I was expecting because it was bank-owned. All we will need to do to get it ready to live in is paint the walls and clean the carpets. Everything else is in fantastic shape – with the exception of a few things the bank has agreed to fix like a broken window, a dented bedroom door, and a lightbulb that’s out on the landing. That’s IT!!! I was ecpecting the place to not have any appliances, to be in horrible condition, but no! It’s perfect.

The problem was, we looked at this house on the day we went to look at houses for the first time. We saw several properties, and NONE of them came even close to this one, or to where we currently live for that matter. So we talked to the mortgage guy, and by the time we figured out how affordable this property could be, someone had snatched it up.

So we were sad. But we kept looking. We only saw one other townhouse out of about 15 total that was worth our time (and hundreds online). It had some serious drawbacks like the fact that it had no appliances, it needed some upgrades, and it was not a part of an association so we would be responsible for exterior damage and repairs. But it had a HUGE yard. And we liked it. So we put an offer in on it and people were bidding for above the asking price, which we were unwilling to do. So we walked away.

A week or two later, our favorite townhouse was back on the market. I was leary because I assumed it meant the home inspectionm had gone awry and shed light on some major problems that caused the initial buyers to back out. But nope. The initial buyer was an investment group that just ultimately decided to walk. They lost their ernest money and everything. So I about peed my pants when I saw it was back on the market. And for the last week and a half, we have been going back and forth with offers and counter offers, and yesterday afternoon we got the news that it is ours!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our closing is April 27 (YIKES!) and we will paint and clean carpets, and plan to move the first or second week of May.

So excited. Now I just need to calm down and not pack everything we own. It is so hard for me to sit here and not start boxing things up immediately. I have already gone and gotten paint samples and gone to the furniture to look at the new things we will need to buy.

Can’t wait to finally own a home and save some money in the process!