It’s been many months since this post about starting the house search. 4 months to be exact. And in that time we: made an offer on a house in November but we just missed it because the house was already under contract. [cue tiny violins]
If you caught this recent high five Friday post, you’ll know that we had something exciting happen! We bought a house! We are officially under contract as of Friday, January 17 and things are moving right along. I thought it would be fun to do a timeline of our process. I realize that it could get kind of long since I’ve included all the nitty-gritty details (leaving out $$ and the address, of course) but I think things happened quickly enough that you shouldn’t get bored.
Saturday, January 4 – We saw 3 houses with our Realtor (Jayne), the first time we’ve been since the beginning of December, and we both really liked the last one. Unfortunately it was just out of our price range but Jayne says she’ll send us the comparable’s that evening. The Colt’s playoff game was on in the evening but we got home in time for Forest to call our mortgage guy to see if there was a possibility to stretch our pre-approval amount, if needed. We didn’t discuss the house the entire Colt’s game but as soon as they won (woot woot) we looked at the comp’s Jayne had sent and started discussing. We both agreed that we wanted to make an offer! I text Jayne that evening that we wanted to make an offer and she called soon after to talk about $$.
Sunday, January 5 – We met Jayne in the evening to sign our offer. Forest and I had discussed what we wanted our first offer to be but after talking to Jayne about the comp’s we decided to go even lower with the hopes of meeting the sellers somewhere in the middle.
Monday, January 6 – I text Jayne late in the evening since we hadn’t heard anything all day. She called soon after with the seller’s counter-offer, which was still out of our comfort zone. So we made a second offer back to the sellers.
Wednesday, January 8 – Jayne called late in the morning to say that the seller’s needed a little more time but that she wanted us to see another house that was at the low-end of our price range in a nearby neighborhood. The house was cute but needed more work than we were ready for.
Thursday, January 9 – Jayne called at lunch with another counter-offer from the sellers. I called Forest to make sure we agreed on this last offer – since the sellers wanted it to be our absolute best number. Later that evening, while we were driving to Imprint, Jayne called to say THE SELLERS ACCEPTED! After Imprint it was a mad dash home to print our initial offer and make the proper changes to the numbers but our printer called it quits when we tried to print the last file.
Friday, January 10 – I printed the last of the papers at work and Forest drove over to my work so he could sign and initial and all of the paperwork was sent to Jayne before lunch.
Tuesday, January 14 – I talked to our attorney, Rob, and took oh-so-many of notes. We discussed everything from the attorney review (3 days in which both attorneys review the contract and make any necessary changes/amendments) to our timelines and deadlines for inspections and mortgage approval to closing dates and money. I tried to explain everything to Forest as we drove to a friends house for dinner. I know I didn’t explain it like Rob did but I think Forest understood enough. We are officially under attorney review!
Friday, January 17 – Forest received the seller’s attorney review letter. The seller’s agreed to everything except it was contingent on them finding a house of their own. Meaning our closing date would keep getting pushed farther out if the sellers ran into trouble finding a house. whomp whomp. I called our attorney’s office to see what that meant for us if we agreed but Rob wasn’t available so I left a message. A few hours later, Rob called to say that the seller’s attorney sent another letter saying that they agree to everything. They had taken out the contingent of them finding a house. We are officially under contract with a closing date of March 15!!
Tuesday, January 21 – Forest set up a home inspection for today, Wednesday, January 29! Forest was able to shuffle his work schedule around but I won’t be able to make it since it’s in the morning.
Sunday, January 26 – We started reading through our loan application papers we got from the mortgage company. Whew… We have a couple questions but Forest is getting those answered today.
I’ve already begged Forest to take tons of pictures for me during the inspection! Silly me didn’t take any pictures when we first saw the house because I thought it was too far out of our price range…
We are so gosh-darn excited that we may or may not be planning paint colors and furniture purchases! EEK! Forest is trying to decide where to hang all of his sports things (he’s currently decided on the wall leading down to the basement) while I’m looking forward to taking down the wallpaper in the kitchen/dining room and figuring out the layout of furniture.
oh! I guess some details about the house would be nice. It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch-style house. With a living room, family room, huge eat-in-kitchen and partially finished basement. The house was built in the 1950’s but has been seemingly well maintained and updated recently. There is also a really nice deck off of the side of the house (from the kitchen) and a good-size backyard. It currently has an above ground pool but Forest and I are in agreement that it’s too much maintenance/up-keep so we’ll likely be getting rid of it. (I don’t want to say definitely because we could change our minds.)
Until next time — Cindy
feature image source
a view from the shore 