Big News

After tempting you guys last month it's time for the reveal ... later this month we're going to be home owners!
We started looking for a house almost 2 years ago when Tyler first took the job. We were really excited back then because we knew there were lots of great deals, but we soon learned with all the foreclosures and short sales it was almost too overwhelming! Since then we have been casually looking, but we weren't wanting to rush into anything. Because we have a really cheap month to month rental contract we have been waiting for just the perfect house before we made an offer. And now, we've found that house!

I asked Tyler if he thought it was cool that I started sharing the news about the house, and he said yes - as long as I told the awesome story about how we found this house... so here goes!

Back in November, Tyler and I spent a day looking for houses when we came across a house that we really liked. The floor plan and neighborhood (and price) were perfect for what we wanted but it was a short sale and the previous owners had stripped the house of light fixtures, blinds, and had nasty stained carpet. Also, the backyard was kind of terrible. It sloped down into a nature preserve which was basically a swampy forest, hence, really bad for little kids. So we left the house telling our realtor great potential.. but not perfect.

Here's where it gets interesting ...

As we were getting into our car, a neighbor stopped us. He noticed we were looking at the house and wondered if we would be interested in looking at his house across the street. He eventually told us he had just found a great deal on a larger home, and was going to be listing his house soon.

Interestingly enough, his house was the same floor plan and on the other side of the street. They had a very clean home with amazing taste, hardwood floors, a pool, and the house backed up to a little lake so it had amazing views. It was so incredible and didn't even compare to the house across the street! Although he hadn't listed the home yet, we asked what he was planning on listing it for, when he told us we almost laughed. He was planning on listing it for twice as much as the one across the street. We then realized the place was way out of our budget and left the house bummed about it.

In the next few months, Tyler and I often thought back about that house and how amazing it was, wishing we could find something like it! It was our "dream house" and we compared everything else we saw to that house.

Here's where it gets even more interesting ...

Flash forward to April 30th - it's the last day to be eligible for the first time home buyer tax credit and we had an appointment with our realtor to go look at 10 houses. Before we left I looked online one last time at all the recent houses listed for sale ... and randomly enough - the "dream house" had just been listed that day as a "short sale" -- right in our budget! I was freaking out, I showed Tyler and we really couldn't believe it.

This is getting long, so I'll sum it up - we couldn't get in touch with their realtor so we just showed up at the house later that day. Hoping he would remember us, Tyler went to the door with our realtor as 6-week-old sleeping Jackson and I waited in the car... They were invited in, and I waited out there for about 15 minutes before finally Tyler came back outside and said, "come inside now, we're buying this house today."

AND WE DID! It took almost 3 months, but we found out on JULY 19th that the Short Sale price was approved by the bank. We now are planning on closing in a couple weeks.

Here's a pic of Ty and Jackson in the empty house ... we're so excited!