How it begins

 

The Search Begins

 

All during 2014, my wife and I had been discussing and trying different ways to save us money so that we could use that money for another passion of ours, Traveling. Prior to marrying me, my wife had done a very limited amount of traveling. I, on the other hand, moved all around and due to moving a lot, I was able to see a lot of the USA and the world.

After numerous attempts at various money saving ideas found across Pinterest; even going as far as selling homemade things on eBay and Craigslist, we came to the realization that while they do indeed help save money, they just weren't going to be enough to get us where we wanted and in the time frame we had in mind. We needed a new game plan.

When I found out my wife was pregnant in late 2012, I made the decision to sell the home we were living in and to move into a bigger nicer house. I was getting a better income, and wanted to provide a place that would be ours for the foreseeable future. Lucky enough to have taken such good care of the house, we sold it to the first couple that looked at it.

 

House we sold in 2012

Looking for houses in early 2013 involved a lot of research and a lot of going out and seeing many house. Using the same realtor (Mike) who helped us sell our house, we had him gather lots of info and we went house hunting. We started our search for a house at a price range we were very comfortable with. We even found a home at that price range that we wanted and we put a bid in. This home had everything we wanted and we felt it could be a home that our family would fall in love with.

We ended up not being the only ones who felt this as another young couple also put a bid in on the house. Their offer was more than ours, even though it was filled with different conditions and requests. The home owners decided to go with their bid, even though the realtor for them suggested us as our offer had no conditions.

Unfortunately, at this time we had seen everything on the market in the area we were looking in our price range. Over the course a few months, we decided we would have to increase our price range if we wanted to move into a house before the baby came. Increasing our budgets much higher then we started at, we found the home we are currently in.

Current home

This house had everything we could ever want and need. Plenty of space for all the storage we needed, a large backyard to make it a wonderful place for our kids to grow up in. The master bathroom my wife drooled over the second we walked into it and many other wonderful features. With it though came a large mortgage and something even worse that we didnt take into account, utilities that went up a very very large chunk from the previous home. All in all, we have become "house poor." Spending more than we should on the house and the utilities, and not being able to use that same money for different and better things.

After finally coming to the realization that as a family, we want to be able to do more things with each other, rather than spend so much on our home, we decided we would start looking for a new home in early 2015 and start the process of moving and getting our home down to a more affordable position. Little did I know that this would all happen much faster than I thought.

Using Mike from our other move, we asked him to set up a site for us so we could see what was on the market in our price range and with some certain requirements. Preferably 4 bedrooms, a bathroom in the master bedroom, a kitchen that was workable (I am a big cook), a backyard that would work with an expanding family and a big enough family room for toys and fun. We wanted the home to be move-in ready, but wouldn't mind if there was areas that with time, i could fix up and make them nicer.

It seems that the area we live in, homes were moving very fast. We would be notified a new home was posted on the MLS site, and within a week or two they were under contract. Knowing that we were not looking to buy till January, we weren't in too big a rush so we never really pushed to go see any homes. We did however go look at a few homes that were under contract already just to get an idea of what was out there. Couple of the homes were a little under our price range, but many of them had some unique things we liked. None of them i would say i was drooling over.

Then one day while at work, a new one came on the market, and I really liked the looks of it and wanted to see what it looked like. I contacted Mike and asked if he could set something up for the next day or so. He got back to me that we could go the following morning. When I told my wife, she was not pleased. She was starting her holiday baking session and was upset that we were looking at a house with only 3 bedrooms. We are eventually going to have another baby and wanted to make sure we had room for the kids plus a guest room. I said this was just to look and get an idea and just see what was around. This house was listed a little over our price point, but not much.

We walked into the house and she and I both knew that this was THE house. It was a combination of our two prior houses with many of the features we wanted. The price point was only slightly above what we wanted and there was room for some improvements to make it a long term house. Only problem was, we had done none of the steps needed to be in a position to put an offer in and to buy a home. Our house was not ready to be on the market and we were not pre-approved for a mortgage.

Getting all the steps done as fast as possible, we were able to put an offer in on the house around 3 pm. With issues on our last few home buying experiences, we were not expecting to hear anything back fast. Only 3 hours later, I was informed by Mike that the house was under contract and the home inspection was set up for the following Monday.

Holy moley, we own a new home. I was so excited calling my wife and informing her. She was in shock as we were also informed there were 3 other young couples who had gone back and looked at the house a second time. We also found out 2 of them were about to put in offers when ours was accepted. Talk about luck on this house.

Holy Moly, we own this home

Seeing how lucky we were, how easy the process was, how my wife and I both knew the second we walked in, we both know that this is a journey that will be amazing. This site is going to be my way of motivating myself to make this house into the home of our dreams. Not only will I use it to motivate myself, but hopefully to motivate others to do more as well.

P.S. Sorry there are not more pictures of the new home, we dont close on it till January 28th. Till then this will be mostly about the process of moving from our current home to the new one. Then the fun will begin on that house to turn it into our HOME.