February/March ish: We started looking for houses. Because it's fun. I don't think we actually knew at this point that we would be trying to buy a house soon, but we looked at a lot of listings and eventually went to see a few.
April: We decided to do the legwork to see how much it would take to actually get us into a house. We picked a lender and went to meet with a mortgage officer to get preapproved. He gave us a budget, which was basically the same range we had been thinking about. At the same time, we started looking at houses more seriously. We decided that we really wanted to live in the island neighborhood we've been renting in for the last year, so those were the only houses we really looked at after that. We looked at one house that we liked, but it wasn't quite what we were looking for. After working with the realtor who was showing that house, we decided to continue working with her, so she started looking for houses for us as well. We looked at a few others that we didn't love, there hasn't really been a lot on the market in this area and our budget...
The house we're buying was actually one of the first listings I looked at, so I did think it would still be on the market. We went to look at it at the end of April, and I think it went under contract a few days later. I was a little sad, but we kept looking. We found another house that was in the neighborhood, and seriously thought about putting an offer in. It was cute, and almost everything was updated (most of the houses in the neighborhood are REALLY old, so this is pretty crucial), but the layout was a little weird, and it had new white carpet through the whole house (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we're not the cleanest people...), and it was on a busy road...
May: While we were debating about that one, the one that we're buying came back on the market. I think they had a buyer back out on them after inspection, because when they listed it again they raised the price a little and said that they were putting a new roof on it and updating some of the paint (lucky thing that went wrong #1). We decided to put an offer in and see what happened... They accepted, and we were under contract!
Since then, we've mostly just been coasting while the bank and our realtor have worked out all the difficult stuff. We had to schedule the inspection, which was almost a disaster. He was supposed to go one afternoon and meet us there later to go over the results, but he forgot about the appointment and still hadn't arrived when we got there. Luckily, he was able to come right away and finish that evening, and he did it for free because he felt so bad about almost missing it (lucky thing that went wrong #2). Nothing terrible came back from the inspection, other than the roof needing replaced, which we already knew and the sellers were already planning on taking care of. The bank did the appraisal, and while they were going over some of our original paperwork they found a mistake made by the disclosure company. Because of that, we ended up getting some extra money to cover our closing costs and a few other things (lucky thing that went wrong #3).
Everything looked good and we were excited to close today, but I guess we'll still be excited tomorrow. Also, this gives us a little time to get a few more things packed and figure out exactly how we're getting everything over there, so it's ok. The people who bought our contract aren't moving in until Mid-July, so we've got a while still. Anyway, hopefully we'll close tomorrow and move in later this week! Wish us luck!
Such a crazy process! I'm so excited for you guys! I need to come and visit you someday.
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