My Current Project: Or Where am I?

This year’s Easter Sunday was beautiful. It’s not always warm in April around here, but this year it one of the first days when you could tell summer was coming. I live near several city lakes so I grabbed a coffee and walked around the lake.

On the way back home I spied a sign for an open house just one block from my apartment. Sure. I love looking at houses. It was adorably tiny, two bedroom. They’d done a lot of work downstairs to open up the old room and still keep some of the charm. It had a nicely finished basement. But I’m happy renting. You have to save a lot of money to buy a house. And then you have to shovel snow in the winter fix the boiler and roof when they break. No thank you.

That night, I dreamed of houses. 

Darn. Now I want a house.

Monday after work I was decided. Was it even possible for me to buy a house? Not that house of course. I was certain (and correct) that it was already sold even though it had been on the market for only a few days. But I thought there might be other (cheaper) two bedroom houses around the area. So I wandered into a real estate office and sat down with the only realtors in the office at 3pm on Easter Monday. I got signed up to be alerted when houses in my area went for sale as well as to get their wonderful expertise on all things house buying.

I also got pre-approved for a loan and then sat back and waited. I figured there might be a house for me out there. Maybe. I’m kind of picky. It had to be in the same neighborhood I currently rented in (I’m not leaving my fiber internet). I want to be able to walk to stores after work. The house couldn’t be too big. Porches are nice, old is nice, decent tub for baths and most importantly – PLENTY of room for my 2,000+ books.

A week later a little house popped on the market. Two bedrooms with an open house the next day. It was pretty awesome. Not perfect – but I’ve lived in enough houses that I knew there wouldn’t ever be perfect. The kitchen was small but could be updated and it wasn’t in bad shape. And the basement was ready to be finished. It didn’t have a washer-dryer though. I put an offer on the house. Sunday was spent negotiated with the seller. I called my mom. I called my grandma. I read a book and took a long bath to stop wondering.

They went with the offer that came later on Sunday. It was on the market for only two days.

Another week went by and another little house popped onto the market. Two bedrooms. My sister was in town for her birthday and I had the day off so we went for a visit the next day. It was…okay. A little bigger than I needed and facing a busy road. I loved the downstairs rooms – they even had a beautiful build-in in the dining room. But the upstairs left me feeling meh, the basement looked badly done and the yard barely there. As we were finishing up, I remembered another house had just popped into my inbox that very morning. It was a block away – could we see it? We could.

I pretty much decided I would put an offer on it as we walked around the yard. It felt very similar to first house I put an offer on. It even had a deck. Like the previous houses, it had a full 3-season porch, a claw foot tub, and was old. 1900s old. (Literally built in 1900). It didn’t have a built-in and the basement will never be livable. But it also didn’t have the only bathroom accessible only through the bedroom. In fact, it had two bathrooms as well as a washer and dryer. I tweaked my original offer and sent it out. I crossed my fingers. We went to dinner with friends. (We had Jucy Lucy’s – which is a hamburger with melted cheese inside the burger).

As we drove home, my realtor called me. They’ve accepted your offer.

And so my past two weeks have been filled with moments of intense waiting and panic.

1. Get Earnest money to realtor asap
2. Get an Inspector asap (House passed with flying colors)
3. Amended Offer based on Inspection
4. Wait to see if they accept amended offer
5. Wonder if you shouldn’t have done an amended offer
6. Offer accepted again, phew
7. Pay got the Appraiser
8. Send Paperwork to the Loan folks
9. Wait to see if there are any issues stemming from step 7 or 8 <– current step
10. Wait
11. Wait
12. Wait
13. Closing on June 6th (or is it 5th? One of those days).

Oh! And of course, step zero was to build the house in sims and start putting my furniture in!

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