Our new house!

In August, We decided that it was about time for us to buy a house. We had jobs, savings, money for a down payment, and the credit scores to do it. We met with the realtor we chose the third week in August, learned about the process, and set up a time to see our first five houses. Liked one, hated the others. You have to understand, though, we came into homebuying just like we do everything--lists for everything, a vision in our heads from the beginning for what the end result would be, etc.

After the first round, we set up a second round of showings, still in Orange and Chatham counties. Hated all but one of the houses again, and weren't too crazy about that one either. We decided we needed a new strategy, since the thing about the houses we had been looking at is that they all needed major renovations if they were in our price range. Discouraging! We didn't want to buy a house and then have to spend $30-$50K to make a house livable at the front end.

So we decided to expand our search to Wake County--including Cary and Morrisville, but not so far east we hit Raleigh. Still near our current home, great schools, not in Durham, etc. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for us, our realtor 's business didn't cross the Wake county line, so she referred us to a second realtor, Debbi. We love Debbi! Before our first day looking with her, she pulled listings for us, suggested places we never would have seen without her, but after an entire Sunday, we had only liked one of the homes--again! And it had ivy, which was a definite dealbreaker for us.

When we got back to her office, we were looking through the listings to see if we had overlooked anything, and noticed two listings for new construction that were at the absolute top of our price range. Actually a few thousand over, but the still showed up in our search. We had ignored both since we needed the house to close by 11/30, but both had an agent remark that they would close by that deadline.

Here's some backstory: last year, when we first came to visit Raleigh, we stayed with our friends, Steph and Brandon. They have a beautiful home in a polished, friendly, brand-new subdivision that is filled with young, professional married couples and young families. From the first time we visited, we had been in love with their neighborhood, but the homes, with the upgrades we would have chosen, were outside of our price range.

Well, you guessed it--the two homes under construction were in that neighborhood. Our new realtor was serious about homebuyers loving the neighborhood they were buying into, so she probably knew it was a done deal when we were driving over, but we were still skeptical that we could find our dream home in that neighborhood at the listed price.

When we were looking at the floorplans, we realized that it was even the same floor plan as S & B have. Then, as we were going over the specs and upgrades, we realized that aside from hardwoods, the house was exactly what we were looking for, and then some. We took a day to think about it, but in the car on the way home, after talking about everything we had seen, it hit us--that was going to be the house we put an offer in on. We were so excited!

We spent the next day getting prequalified with a mortgage, and put our offer in on September 1--for full asking price, some extra upgrades, and a chunk of closing costs. I got the call the next morning that the offer was accepted, and we were officially under contract!!!

The last five weeks have been a blur--we chose the interior finishes, and have been going through the underwriting process, which is tedious, but not impossible yet. We've been going by the house 2-3 times a week to take pictures and see the progress that's been made--last week the builders put in the doors and window trim, crown molding, baseboards, and finished painting. This week, they'll be installing vinyl, granite countertops, and starting on the fixtures, etc.

Closing is set for a month from today--we're so excited!!!!!

You can see all the photos, and from this weekend, a video tour, on facebook.


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