Um, we just bought a....

House.  Yes, a house.  Yes, another one.

My story starts about a week ago when I had absolutely no intention of buying anything more expensive than groceries.  Our house is small.  About 1100 sq ft small and there are five of us in it.  It's not horrible, but we are getting a little cramped.  Nate and I have just assumed that qualifying for a second house on top of law school loans was just not possible.  But about a week ago I started wondering, what if?  It doesn't hurt anything to just speak with a lender and see if there is any possibility.

So I did.  I knew that regardless of what they said, we could afford both houses.  Especially because we will find a renter for the house we are living in now.  I just didn't know how they would factor in our large student loans.  Anyway, right off it looked like we were in good shape to qualify for an FHA loan.  So I started looking at the local MLS site.  That was somewhat discouraging because there wasn't really anything that matched what I was wanting.

But then, last Friday morning something new popped up.  It is in our neighborhood, just three streets over from us.  It is the largest model of house in our development, and seemed perfect.  So I called a friend, got the name of her realtor, and was looking at the house a few hours later.  I loved it. 

Saturday, I took Nate and the kids over to see it.  They loved it too.  I guess to say that the kids loved it is a huge understatement, though.  This house is double the size of ours so they enjoying being able to actually run around.

Saturday night we decided to try to get the house.  Our realtors told us that a house that size, in such good condition, and at such a good price was not going to last long.  It was hard to wait out Sunday knowing that we couldn't do anything about our descision until Monday. 

Monday morning came.  We had to switch our lender because the first one I contacted was in no particular hurry to get us a preapproval, which was required to be submitted with the offer.  The lender our realtor sent us to was awesome and got things done so quickly.  So Monday morning at about 10:00 I met with the realtor to submit an offer.  Unfortunately, the seller had already gotten one bid on the house, so we knew we were going to have to submit a better offer than we might have started with.  Thanks to email and scanners, we were able to sign everything; me at the office and Nate at work miles away.  The offer was submitted by 11:30.

Mid afternoon, I get a call from my realtor.  The seller had received a 3rd offer!  Good grief, what happened to this being a buyer's market?  We were now in the middle of a seller's market for sure.  We were told that everyone was to submit their absolute best offer and they would take the best one.  Our original offer was actually for $2,000 more than the asking price but we had asked for the seller to pay our closing costs.  We didn't want to go any higher on the price, and we were also afraid that if we did, the appraisal might come in too low and mess everything up.  So we kept our bid at the same number but dropped the closing costs and said we would pay them.

We then got to sit and wait.  This morning, Nate and I were both pretty convinced that we didn't get the house.  But then the realtor called mid afternoon to tell us that the seller accepted our offer!

Here are the details of our house:  Two stories, 2300 sq ft, 4 bedrooms (1 downstairs, master and 2 more upstairs), 3 full baths, great room downstairs, loft upstairs, newly painted (a color that I love), brand new oven, microwave, dishwasher and lighting fixtures, $132,000 (it was listed at 129,900).  Our current small house has a higher mortgage balance by more than a few thousand dollars.  (But it would only sell for about $70,000, which is why we will rent it out.)  Our monthly payments will be almost identical  (the new house has to have mortgage insurance, or the payment would be less).  Now we just need to find a renter!  We should be in our new house in about a month!

Here are a few pictures.  Pictures of the bedrooms are boring, so I didn't include those.  But the master has a large bathroom with a big walk in closet.  Oh, and I will have a laundry room now.  Currently, my washer and dryer are in the garage.


View from in front of the entryway.




Upstairs loft.


Pictures, obviously, don't do it justice.  We are EXCITED!!!