Here we go again. Absolute insanity. I didn’t think that this would happen quite so soon, but it’s happening, and I’m actually pretty excited about it.
So we decided to buy a house. We were kind of casually looking at first, and then we started to notice all kinds of cool things out on the market. And when that was noticed, that’s when it all went downhill. It turned into a full-on obsession. We enlisted the help of our friend Melanie Fenelon, who is…by the way…the greatest real estate agent in the world…and we went to it.
The past couple of weeks we started getting pretty serious because we got our pre-qualification letter, which is, of course, the first thing the serious home buyer needs to have in hand. It provides the power of making a serious offer to a seller. And once that was procured, we started really paying attention to the search results that Melanie set us up with in her nifty MLS system. Within one week we had about 12 different places out of 90-ish that we thought looked good and fit into our price range.
Looking at houses in pictures is one thing. Looking at houses up close and personal and walking through them is a completely different experience altogether. It should be no surprise that the pics generally look a whole heck of a lot better than ‘real life’. Such was the case for around 9 of the 11 places, 2 of which we didn’t even bother going through because we just knew they wouldn’t work. So that left 2 that we really liked, and ONE that we wanted to put an offer down on.
But it was not to be. We went to have Melanie draw up a contract and found out that, even though it had been on the market for a mere 2 days, it went under contract the day we looked at it. It sucked because it seemed to be pretty perfect for us. We were a little bummed…
Here comes the part where it becomes hard to think that things aren’t just meant to happen.
That same night the place you see in the picture above popped into our search. We looked at it and thought, “Wow, that seems pretty nice.” The only bad thing about it was that it is in the upper-most part of what we wanted to pay. But that was alright because if it has everything you want, then it’s worth it, right? Well…minus the white appliances…but that’s easy enough to replace… :).
So the next day, Christy decided to drive past it. It didn’t even a sale sign out yet. But the guy who owned it was there, and she ended up being able to go in and check it out. She fell in love with it; so much so in fact that she called and I ended up coming over later that evening. I ended up really liking it as well. So we called our real estate agent, had a contract drawn up, and off we went. Pretty amazing!
One minute, not a homeowner. The next minute, about 90% of the way there. Just like that.
Even better was the fact that we had an inspection today, and it came back about as clean as clean can be. Melanie said that she’d only only seen three other places she has sold come back so clean on the inspection side. The inspector even said he was really having to look for things.
In the end, we’re only having them do several very minor things. We’re now officially set to close on May 12th.
I’m prety damn excited about it. I didn’t think I’d really want to become a homeowner again for awhile. Now it definitely feels like we’ve found our place here in the great nation of Texas, so I guess the next logical step was to grab our small piece of land. It’s especially sweet knowing that the housing market down here is absolutely booming despite what is happening in the rest of the market. This is absolutely the right time and the right place to be making this happen.
A good investment I think… *patting self on the back*. Way to go, self. And wife.
Congrats! I look forward to the day I can afford at least a condo here in Southern California. And you have a kitchen, with lots of cabinets! I’m jealous.
don’t be jealous, buddy…
just move somewhere where you can have a bunch of cabinets.
christy and i were talking the other day about how in awe we were of people who actually end up buying houses in california. it just doesn’t make any sense to me how it’s even remotely possible unless you are pulling down some really serious bank, you’ve got a ton of cash saved up, or you buy shack that is completely trashed and you end being being the handiest person in the world. it’s just…unbelievable.
a guy/friend i work with is fro california and bought a house six for some ridiculous amount. don’t remember what it was. what i do remember is that it’s worth 640K+ at the moment.
you could spend half that here and have a massive, massive place. and the housing marketing here is still doing well.
on the other hand, we experienced sticker shock when we move from cinci to here.
we bought an older 3 bedroom house with a detached garage, fenced yard and a basement (which you don’t have here at all) in a decent neighborhood almost right next to mariemont for 111K. the house we just bought is about the same size, the yard isn’t as big, and we don’t have a basement, and it was 175K. granted, it’s far more decked out than our last place, but we could have spent about 15-20K max and worked it up to that.
Wow. Houses under 200K. That wouldn’t even buy me a 1 bedroom apartment in Compton. :p In my neighborhood, a place like yours would be 500+.
I would leave, except it’s too awesome here, and we have great jobs. I’m probably going to go the middle route for buying a house, after we’re done paying for the wedding.