So my fiance and I put in an offer for our DREAM HOOOOOME today! Sorry, I'm just a bit excited and every time I bring it up, I stretch out the word home.
Anyway, we've only been house hunting for about a month now, and our search started out pretty terribly. We didn't have a real estate agent that we were working with, so I just looked up "homes for sale" in the area until I found one I liked. The site I was using had a feature where you could save a house to your favorites, and the listing agent would be in contact with you about going out to see the house. So after favoriting the house, I got an email the next day from the listing agent and he said he'd meet with us the following weekend, at the house, if we were serious about looking.
Of course we were!
Skip ahead to the following Saturday, we take my fiance's brother with us because he works for a building company and he knows the ins and outs of a good structured home. Turns out this place was a total piece of junk, and even the real estate agent told us that we should skip out on it and start looking elsewhere. The nice thing to come out of this? We finally had a real estate agent to work with! He was exceptionally helpful and we went out looking at houses every Saturday for the past 3 weeks. We found a house that we loved and is just ten minutes down the road from our current location, but then... we found the perfect house about 20 minutes away, in the town where both my fiance and I grew up! Our families are both excited because we'll be closer to them (we already lived in another state, a 5 hour drive away, for 3 years. Then we moved back to PA and we live 20 minutes away). The house is within our price range, and the couple that currently own the place did sooooo many renovations and updates! The house is on a quiet street, in a pretty little neighborhood AND I'll finally be able to have the pony room I've been wanting for the last few years! They turned the place into a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom house when it was originally 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, the basement is nearly finished, they have a spacious driveway with a detached garage, and a fenced in backyard and patio, which is perfect since we want dogs! I'll be a 15 minute drive away from my job, and my fiance will be able to head over to a bus stop which is about 5 minutes away in order to get to his job in the city (he obviously would never drive since parking prices in the city are ridiculous). On top of that? The house hasn't even been listed yet! We were the first people to get to see it, and if all goes well, they can skip the listing process if they accept our offer.
Just 24 hours ago, we were both worried that we may not have the money for the down payment because we were hoping to use the next few months to save up money. Well, things began falling into place and we have more than enough money for the down payment thanks to my fiance's mom! She was saving the money to go towards our wedding this upcoming October, but then my family decided they would take care of most of the wedding costs, freeing her up from having to pay for anything.
Right now I'm nervous, excited, scared, hopeful... so many feelings at once! Since last night, I've talked to my mom, my grandparents, my fiance's mom and brother, my 3 best friends, and a few internet friends about the situation. I have a wonderful feeling about all of this, and we feel like they'll accept the offer, but we won't know for sure until Wednesday. So, I'm kinda nervous having to wait.
Long story short: This will be our first home and I'm too excited and nervous to even think straight!