Date 107 - There's No Place Like Home!

Date: November 20, 2013 - November 23, 2013
Type: Big Change
Cost: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ x many more
Planned By: Both

ADAM AND I ARE HOMEOWNERS!!

I have been waiting to write this post for a long time. In fact we actually first looked at houses two years ago. Back then I was kind of serious about it, but Adam was just humoring me. He really didn't want to buy a house at that point. So then we moved downtown in April 2012. In October/November of 2012 we started looking again. This time we raised our budget and looked at a nice condo and a short sale fixer upper. In the long run neither of those worked out because we didn't know what would happen with my job's grant the following September. After I got a new job offer at the end of summer, and we learned we'd both be working in the suburbs, Adam decided it was probably time to buy a house. All three times we worked with the same realtor, Susan Smith, and she was amazing! I would recommend her to every person in the Cleveland area looking to buy a house. (really let me know if you want her information)

This time was very stressful. We wanted to pick a house and be in it before Thanksgiving. We saw between 10-15 houses in person in the area we wanted to move to. We put in an offer on 3 different houses. None of our offers were accepted, despite them being near what each house was worth and it being a slow time for buyers. Then one day our realtor called and said we needed to see another house that just went on the market. We met her there 30 minutes later, quickly looked through the whole house, and realized that this was the best one that we had seen in our price range! It has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2 car garage, a huge finished basement and a deck (all our must haves). We put in an offer that night.

The following Saturday we were at OU with all of our friends celebrating homecoming 2013! We got a call from Susan that the seller gave a great counter offer and we ACCEPTED! So we celebrated in one of our favorite places with some of our favorite people that we were finally going to buy a house!

Then we had the inspection which didn't go perfectly, but after many negotiations the seller paid for most of the fixes. We were set to close on November 19th, but there were hold ups with the seller and title company so we signed the papers on the 20th.

We were both at work when we got the official call on 11/21/2013. So we had to e-mail our excitement to each other. We got our keys right after work.

Susan met us at our house to give us our keys after work. She gave us our first plant and a gift card! It was really sweet of her. Before she left she took a couple photos for us.

After Susan left we made a toast to our new house with champagne and our wedding glasses, and had our first dinner in our new house.

 

To remember moving in to our first house we did a short super fun First Home Photo Shoot the night we got the keys (including some photos above)! They aren't that great because it is quite difficult to take indoor photos at night with a tripod, but it was fun. :)

On Saturday the 23rd we moved Obi in to the house in the morning. He was a little nervous and stressed at the beginning, but also excited and curious. After a couple days he got used to it. He got a mini photo shoot, too!

Then my mom, Rob, Adam, two movers and myself moved out all of our furniture from our apartment. It went surprisingly well. We got everything loaded on the truck in two hours (which is short if any of you know how terrible it is to move out or in to Reserve Square). Rob and Adam moved everything in to the house very quickly, and we were done way ahead of schedule! We got really lucky because the snow started falling soon after they were done.

We are so happy that this process is over because are ready to live in a our house as a happy little family!