The Home Process

We just made it. Phew!

You thought we were going to go two full months without blogging, didn’t you?

That would be sad.

Fortunately, we are back in business, just in the nick of time!

Soooo we bought a house.

Yep. We did.

Here’s a little recap of the saga, to get yall back up to speed.

Around the time of my last post, we were wallowing in a state of utter devastation over getting out-bid on the first condo. Okay, I’ll clarify that a bit – I was probably the only one in that frame of mind. Taylor bounced right back. We continued to stalk house-websites (RedFin, Zillow, etc.) as we zoomed closer and closer to “the date.” The Date being when we absolutely needed to close on our future condo so that we could move out of our apartment without any lapse of time in-between.

And then one night, just when we were starting to lose hope, we got an email update from RedFin – a new house just went on the market…in the right location and in our price range!!! It was a joyous evening.

We arranged to see the condo the next day.

We measured, and we took pictures, and the place was good.

We literally planned to put an offer in two days later. And then things went spiraling out of control. Again.

We discovered that the mortgage company we had been working with could not give us a loan on a non-FHA approved condo unless we had a 20% down payment. We did not.

{Lesson learned: there is a major difference between a mortgage broker and a mortgage lender. Who knew!?}

That same week, we hunted for, found, and met with a new mortgage company. We went through all the mounds of paperwork with them for pre-approval.

{Another lesson learned: there is a difference between pre-qualification and pre-approval.

Pre-qualification = minimal paperwork (credit checks, etc.) to show that you’re “likely” to be approved for the loan when you submit your offer.

Pre-approval = TONS of paperwork (bank statements, pay-stubs, tax records, etc.) to show that you’re actually pre-approved for the loan when you submit your offer.}

A few days after that, we submitted our offer.

As luck would have it, someone else submitted an offer the same day we did. Again.

And so we went into “highest and best” offer round. Again.

This time, we didn’t mess around, but ironically, our offer was “just barely” accepted.

{HA. I’d love to talk to someone who actually had their realtor say “Wow oh wow did you guys bid wayyyyy higher than the other couple. Psh.}

But anyway….

OUR OFFER WAS ACCEPTED!!!!

{Happy dance here!!!!}

All of that happened in a just a few days. Seriously. After that, the fun began. Over the next 4 weeks, we had the inspection and appraisal done. We measured the apartment and took tons of pictures. We worked with our insurance company and made sure we had the appropriate amount of insurance for the condo. We nailed down a closing date (May 11^th….lovely day, isn’t it!?), and secured an appointment time. We asked for time off work to attend the closing (and move!). We received the mounds of paperwork from the condo HOA and read though all of it.

{Yes. We. Read. Through. All. Of. It.

What can I say? I’m a lawyer’s daughter. I read legal mumbo-jumbo, and like it.}

We started packing the apartment. We canceled internet service at the old apartment. We set up new internet service at the condo. We transferred our electricity account to our new address. We continued to pack. We scheduled movers and planned out moving day. We submitted a change of address with the USPS.

And so it went, for the entire month.

Closing day happened, moving happened, unpacking happened, and here we are.

Pictures will happen soon. We’re still in the midst of moving things around, but it’s getting there. It really is!