The Next Step...

These past couple of months, Mark and I have taken on a new adventure...

Buying a house!

Needless to say, it has been so stressful!  I've heard how stressful it can be, but I didn't really know what to expect.

It all started when we got our dog.  Our apartment complex no longer allows pets so we aren't allowed to renew our lease when it is up. (Which isn't really a bad thing since we really don't like it that much here anyway!)  So we looked at some apartments down the street because we really wanted to stay in our ward because we love it here.  Once people in the ward found out, a lot of them would come up to us and tell us about all of the houses that were for sale in the neighborhood. We didn't really take it seriously because we thought "we can't afford a house!"  

Eventually Mark got curious about how much it would cost to get into our own place.  We started out by researching how much a condo or a townhouse would be and were surprised by how affordable they seemed to be.  We then got to thinking that maybe there were single family houses that we could afford too.   We saw an ad online for a house in Clinton for $119,000 and decided to meet with the Realtor. (Actually, Realtors--Josh and Matt of the Wilson-Peterson Sales Team.  They were awesome, and we decided to go with them if we were to really buy a house.) We were curious to see how much house we could get for the money.  At this point we were still a little skeptical that we would actually be able to do it.  

After we saw the house, we decided that it might actually be possible to get a somewhat decent house within our budget.  Soon after that, we met with a lender that was recommended by the Realtors.  We were pre-qualified for around $170,000 but we set our budget around $120,000 to $140,000 which felt more comfortable for us since they payments wouldn't be too far from what we're already paying for rent.  We narrowed our area down to the West Jordan/Taylorsville area since the homes seemed cheaper, and it was still a good commute for Mark.  

In the meantime, Mark and I spent most of our free time online looking at houses.  Our requirements: 3 Bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, at least 1200 sq feet, and  a basement, garage, and RV parking for Mark. We sent an email to Matt with around 30 homes that we were interested in looking at.  However, only about 4 of those were available to look at because a lot of them were short sales that already had offers pending.  Matt also set up one extra one that wasn't on our list.  We were a little disheartened, but made an appointment to go out and look within a few days.

We met Matt at the first house and got started. 

• House #1 was pretty much in disrepair and we knew instantly that it wouldn't work although it had a HUGE RV pad which Mark loved of course.  (People are sure good at taking pictures that make houses look really nice when they're really not!)  

• House #2 we didn't even want to go inside when we drove by.  I really didn't like the vibe of the neighborhood, plus, there were tenants inside anyway. 

•  House #3 was one that seemed like it could work--it met all of our requirements--and the only "bad" thing about it was that it was a split-entry which Mark hates. 

• House #4 had a garage that was pretty much made out of plywood at best which you couldn't tell by the picture.  The kitchen was nice and updated but there was a pretty ghetto apartment complex behind the backyard which was a huge turnoff.  

• House #5 was one of our favorites on the list because it had the best curb appeal.  When we walked in we knew it was definitely the best of all of the houses we had looked at.  It was at the bottom of our price range and we just clicked with the house overall.  The more we looked around the more we liked it.  We did have to look past the kitchen, though--it had really old cabinets (some were even missing!) but we thought it had a lot of potential. It also didn't have a 2nd bathroom--one of our requirements, although it was plumbed for one in the basement.  

After looking at the house, we stayed and looked again.  The longer we stayed, the more we could see ourselves there.  I went to go take some pictures (something I meant to do with all of the houses, but none of them really compelled me to do so besides this one.)  We decided we would make an offer the next morning.

One of the best things about this house is that it wasn't a short sale because almost all of the houses we saw online were, but it was a foreclosure. Come to find out a bank owned property isn't much better than a short sale, but at least we heard back from the bank within the next week on our offer.  The bank came back only a couple thousand over what we offered and it was still lower than the asking price, so we accepted!

I wish I could tell you that was it, but it has been a LONG road since then!.. I would tell you all about it but it would take a long time to explain everything that happened  but I'm not even sure I understand.  Mostly we had trouble because of my lack of credit history but the lender kept trying  for us, and I'm happy to say that FINALLY, after almost 2 months of the offer being accepted, we have a set closing date of Thursday, May 19!

Hopefully if everything else goes as planned we will be moving that weekend!.. We have started packing and our so excited to own our own place!

Of course, I'm sure you'll want to see the pictures

Living Room

Kitchen-complete with missing cabinets!

Dining Area

Stairs to the upper level and the basement

Bathroom

2nd Bedroom (Future Nursery)

Master Bedroom

3rd Bedroom (Craft Room/Office)

Backyard (for Posey!)

Patio for BBQs

Mark's Future RV Parking

When he was 20, Mark set a goal for himself to buy a house by the time he was 25.  However, shortly after we got married he revised it to be that he would buy a house by the time he was 30. Looks like he made his initial goal after all!