My friend Jennifer gave me the name of her realtor in April. She and her sister had both used him, and her sister knew his wife through a mutual friend at Baylor. I called Eric, and the search began! A few weeks in, I had him show me a house in Carrollton, close to where my apartment is. I did not love it. It felt small, older, and like they had redone stuff themselves but not really done a good job. It was good for me to see how things can look very different in real life as opposed to the staged pictures that the stretch out online! I went for weeks without even seeing another one come up in my portal that I was even remotely interested in looking at at. I was supposed to be out of my apartment by June 30th, but we decided to extend my lease until July 31st to give me some extra time. We also decided to up my budget a little bit to open up the options.
The market is CRAZY right now. People are paying $10-$15k over asking and houses are going before they even get on the market. You have to be prepared to look and offer in the same day. It is not the time to be buying, but I was ready, and my parents said they supported it.
Mom and dad were going to come up one weekend to look at neighborhoods and just try to see what I could get for my money. There happened to be a house in Carrollton come on the market on Friday, and they were having an open house on Saturday. They went to the open house with me, and we decided to put in an offer! Eric was out of town, so he had not even seen it! It was definitely not all my style, but it was so clean, redone well, and seemed like a good price, so we didn't want to pass it up.
After all offers were placed, the seller's realtor called Eric and asked for our proof of funding. Eric thought we were in the lead! We scrambled around quickly, sent that over, then just waited to hear. The next day, we found out that we didn't get accepted.
I was upset about losing the house, and I thought I wouldn't find anything else. A couple of weeks passed, and Eric had talked me into looking at houses in Lewisville. I originally had not wanted to look there because I felt like it was far out of the way. It is close to school, but seemed far from everything else. I went home for Father's Day, and a couple of houses in Lewisville popped up that weekend. Eric was so great, and he drove by them and facetimed me inside a couple of them. I loved his honesty and how he seemed to know what I liked pretty quickly. If he said it was a no go, then I trusted him.
Eric face timed me from the house on Babbling Brook Saturday morning. I had not even seen it or asked him to go look at it. He just thought I would like it. I liked it as far as I could tell in a shaky iphone video! :) I have the best friends, too. Lisa, Erin, and Jennifer all live within a mile of this house. They all drove by it several times. Lisa perused the neighborhood at different times of the day and told me she approved. Jennifer drove by and videoed out her window so I could see the street and neighbors. Love them!!!
Mom and dad decided to go back with me on Sunday so they could see it. We went to the house on Sunday, and at first I said no. I liked the hardwood floors throughout. I liked the outside and the neighborhood, the updated kitchen, and how it felt bigger than 1500 square feet.
I did not, however, like the bathrooms! I also felt like it just needed a little freshening up. I really couldn't get past the master bathtub!
Eric helped me visualize what it would be like if we re-did the bathroom, and mom and dad both bought into that too and said we could do some work to it if needed. We went to eat lunch after and talked it through, and we decided to put in an offer! I felt like this was an opportunity to make it look like I wanted, and I was excited about that! We didn't want to pass up the location and that it had good bones.
Eric wrote up the contract that night. We offered the asking price of $200,000. We asked the seller o pay the title. She came back and countered and asked us to pay the title. We didn't want to, but we gave in so that we wouldn't lose the house over $1500. They accepted it that night! It was so fast!!
Once I had it in my head that it was "mine", and I started visualizing how I wanted to redo the bathrooms, I mentally started moving myself in. I drove past it every day, and Lisa and I walked the neighborhoods at night.
I am excited to be in and to decorate!!! I am SO thankful for such loving, generous grandparents and parents. They drop anything to help me, and I appreciated their support throughout the long search!
Before and After pictures coming soon!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment