We Bought a HOUSE!

The biggest (literally) thing going on in our lives over the last two months has been that we bought a house! We started house hunting the first part of February and immediately found out that house hunting is kind of stressful and frustrating, I was feeling kind of drained after only 5 days! We were looking online every night and seeing a few houses each day. I saw one online, a serious fixer-upper, and suggested we look at it. Timing worked out that only Ben was able to go see it, but he came back feeling pretty good about that house- if we could get it at a good price. It was on forclosure, so the online auction closed that night at midnight. An hour before the auction closed we submitted a totally low-ball offer and decided if it was meant to be then it would happen. The next morning while I was running I just daydreamed about the house and all it's potential- I realized I really wanted it (and I hadn't even seen it in person yet). A few hours later they called to say our offer was accepted- we were ecstatic!

The next 2 months were spent going through lots and lots of red tape and submitting more paper work than I ever could have imagined they would need. Since the house is in rough shape (all cosmetic, thankfully) we had to sneak in and fix a few things so that our loan could be approved- and then undo the work we'd done so that HUD (the government agency that owns the home now) wouldn't know we'd been there. So crazy! Every few days they would tell us it was almost ready to close, only to have them need "one more thing" to approve everything that would take a few more days. Each weekend that went by without closing got frustrating- especially since we knew it was going to be SO MUCH WORK, we just wanted to get started so badly. Last Tuesday we finally got the go ahead and had everything ready to close. We were at the title office signing papers when they came in and announced that the party was over and we had to stop! There was a minor discrepancy in our paperwork on the purchase agreement vs the loan documents and HUD would not allow it. So we had to stop and wait 3 more days for HUD to redo the paperwork and send it back. It was so frustrating! Finally this afternoon we signed papers and the house is ours!

We knew going into house hunting that we wouldn't be able to afford everything we wanted- and we were okay with that. Each house we saw we'd talk through the pros and cons of that home, and honestly this house had by far the best of what was most important to us. It is in an excellent school system. It's big enough that we could stay forever if we wanted (5 bedrooms, 4 baths). It seems like it's in a really nice area. The yard is a decent size. We are just so happy with it! The big thing is that it just needs a lot of cosmetic work- we have to paint every surface of the house (walls, baseboards, ceilings, doors, cabinets- everything!) and clean a lot- it is so so dirty! We are recarpetting the whole house (the previous owners had animals) and we have a few spots in the walls that need to be repaired. We have to build a new railing for the open staircase (only a temporary one is there now) and install some of the baseboards/moldings. It's definitely going to be a big project- but one we are so excited to take on!

Here is a picture of the outside of the house- we will wait to show the inside until we get the work done, then you can see the before and after pics!