I am so excited to write this post! Everything that I have eluded to in this, this and this post, and as I’m sure that you have guessed… we bought a new home!
I am beyond excited for this next chapter in our lives and finally having the end in sight with moving out of the cold of Michigan and down south for warmer weather.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved living in Michigan but honestly only in the summertime. Summers are gorgeous here but it just felt like the winters would just drag on and on… and sometimes they actually did and we would still have snow in May!
While I won’t miss the snow, I will miss the summers and all the beautiful wineries and breweries that we found and visited while living there.
Anyway, onto the topic at hand! As you can see by the photos… the house is not finished yet and still has about 2 months’ worth of work to go before it is finished. Which actually works in our favor because the time they are done building we will be ready to close and also ready to move down this summer.
Ya’ll I have to say that this was probably the most stressful house shopping experience we have had.
Ya know they always tell you not to fall in love with a home without seeing it in person or picture yourself living there before signing the paperwork… but I did. I did exactly what they tell you not to do.
And I fell hard.
I found this home online in one of the many searches that we did while preparing to move. It didn’t have any pictures with it, not even of the outside elevation. It only a description of the property, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and some pictures of the model home that is in the community.
On paper it sounded like the perfect home for us. Had the exact number of bedrooms we wanted, in a community with a pool for the kiddos, closer to the hubby’s work, great school district, literally everything we wanted. So I told our realtor about it and put it on the list for us to visit while in town.
Honestly, I didn’t even know it was a new build either or that it wasn’t finished. I just assumed it was.
When we got to Dallas the first day, we were off the races immediately and looked at 5 homes the first day. Unfortunately, this house was not one of those houses because the model was closed and there wasn’t anyone here to open this house for us. We ended up seeing another house that we really liked but it was a little farther from the hubby’s job than we wanted.
The next day this house was about our third on the list. We saw two before this that we just didn’t like at all – and they were actually in the same neighborhood!
As soon as we pulled up to this house I knew it was the one. I didn’t even have to look inside to know that we were going to buy it but walking inside just sealed the deal.
I has a large open floorplan, gigantic kitchen, gigantic island, and enough bedrooms for all the kids to have their own room. With the latter being the only criteria that we had.
Fortunately, the hubby and I have the same taste and so finding a house we agreed on wasn’t difficult. We’re definitely not like most of the people on House Hunters… haha!
After looking at the house, in it’s completely unfinished state, we went to the model to talk numbers. Unfortunately, we ended up finding out that the house already had an offer on it that was accepted.
Big bummer! I was so disappointed!
After hearing this we left and went to look at a few other houses. None of which we liked. We just kept comparing the room sizes, kitchen sizes, and everything to that “dream” home we saw earlier.
To try and take our mind off of it, we went to check out a furniture store and grab an early dinner, mostly for the drinks to calm my nerves and sorrow. It was then we got a call from our realtor saying that if we did want the house, we should really consider putting in a backup offer because the original guy wanted some extra things done to the house that the builder said he would not be able to do.
We talked it over and decided that if we really wanted the house we should do it. If our offer isn’t accepted, we didn’t really lose anything anyway so we wrote a check for the earnest money and I went back to deliver it. When I got back there, the lady told me that she would give the guy 24 hours to make a decision on whether or not to move forward without the extras or they would accept our offer.
Talk about nerve wrecking!
Not wanting to rely on just one offer, we kept our house schedule for the next day with our realtor. The whole time, again, comparing everything to that “dream” home from the day before. This day, however, we did end up finding a home that we could also see ourselves living in if our first offer wasn’t accepted.
Thank goodness we at least had options.
After seeing the houses scheduled for that day, we went to the Fort Worth Stock Yards for a drink and to walk around for a while working off some nerves. After a couple hours we impatiently went back to the hotel and waited for news – good or bad. It seemed like the day dragged on and on.
Our realtor said that the guy had until 6pm to make the decision and she would send me a text as soon as she heard one way or another – se was going to be in a showing at the same time and didn’t want to disturb the other couple – which I was totally fine with.
6pm rolled around and nothing.
Finally at 6:10pm I got a text with a thumbs up and about burst into tears! The other guy backed out and the offer on our dream home was accepted!
Fortunately our offer was accepted on this home because the next day when we saw our realtor she told us that the other house we loved had received an offer as well. We could have been out 2 houses!
We ended up cancelling the rest of our showings for Thursday and went and signed officially paperwork instead. Then we went to have a little celebratory lunch and relax for the rest of the day.
The house is still under construction and all the finishes have already been chosen – it’s considered a spec house – so we can’t change anything but, honestly, after seeing all the choices, I wouldn’t change anything anyway. It has everything that I could ever want in a home and more.
So, wow, that turned into a book but I am so excited for this next chapter in our lives. I cannot wait to get moved in and start decorating and making it our own!
It literally is our dream home and will now be our forever home!
