On Monday morning, Mark and I packed our stuff in the car and left for Florida. It took us about 12-13 hours to get there. [It takes us about 12 hours to get back home in Ohio from here.] The drive was alright, but I did sleep a little bit. Mark said the drive was really boring and that he hated it.
So we got there Monday night, and Tuesday morning started the hunt for a house. We met with our realtor, Lyle, around 10:00 AM. We looked at 5 or 6 houses [one of them being a model home] on Tuesday. After we were done looking, our realtor took us to lunch and we talked about expanding the search to different areas in town, the price range, and other stuff. We liked the houses we saw on Tuesday, but nothing really grabbed our attention like we needed. So our realtor expanded the search, sent us some new houses in a link Tuesday night, and we were back out looking at houses Wednesday morning at 9:15. On Wednesday, we covered more ground in town. I think we even went outside of town to check out a house or two. We looked at about 5 or 6 houses on Wednesday. Just about all of the houses we looked at while we were searching were built by Henry Company Homes. I love their style of architecture/building and their floorplans are spectacular! As we were going to look at another one of their houses in a development, we passed a house that was just a little bit out of the price range we had set, but we decided to go look at it anyway because it was still a price that we would be more than capable of being able to pay for. Mark and I go in, check it out, and we just love it!! While we did love it, we still wanted to look around at other houses and see if we could find something else we loved even more. So we leave that house and head around the corner to the house we were heading to before. We got to the house, and it was really nice! Mark really liked it, I just liked it. After looking at the house for a little bit and talking with each other and our realtor, we decided to give our mortgage broker a call. We call Pati and she figured out how much money we'd be paying each month for everything so that we would have a clearer idea of what we want to do. Mark and I talked for a few minutes after we got off the phone with Pati. We didn't know if we should continue looking, go back to the last house that we fell in love with, or what. We then talk to our realtor and he suggests that we go back to the last house and see if it still has the effect on us like it did when we first saw it. So off to the house we go. Yep, it still had that same effect on me! And it did on Mark, too! We looked around again, trying to see if there was just that one thing that would change our minds. There wasn't. The house was perfect! Our realtor asks us if we want to move forward immediately, or if we wanted to sleep on it. Mark said he wanted to sleep on it, but I said that there would be no sleeping on my end because I'd be too busy planning what I want to do to the house. I told Mark he could sleep on it if he wanted, but after a little while, he changed his mind and decided to move forward. Lyle, our realtor, called the realtor that is managing the development and property. It took him about 30 minutes to get to the house. Once he got to the house, he explained the property in detail to us. It turns out that that particular house has so many features that other houses with the same floorplan do not have. Nice! After talking some more with the development/property manager and his brother, we were pretty much sold on the house! It was just too perfect to not have it for ourselves! So we went over to the model house where the office was, and we got the ball rolling. Mark signed papers, I wrote a check, and we discussed the house and the house buying process even more. About 30 minutes after we left the office, we were told that there was a SOLD sign in the front yard and that the house is ours!!!!
On Thursday afternoon, we had to go back to the house for the first walk-through with one of the builders, our realtor, and the development/property manager. We walked through the house and knit-picked it. Every little, and major, cosmetic defect was marked on the inside and the outside of the house. People are going to go back to the house and fix everything that was marked. It was kind of "buzz kill" going through the house and picking it apart, but it makes me happy that those problems will be fixed before we move into the house - and for free!
After we did the walk-through, we went to the development/property manager's office and took care of some more paperwork. Once we were finished with that, we went to our mortgage broker's office. Mark had a lot of paperwork to do while we were there, and I had a lot of paperwork to give our mortgage broker, Pati. Any worries Mark and I may have had, Pati reassured us everything would be great and that we are way more than capable of being able to pay for every little thing.
So everything is done on our side for now. Pati said she was going to rush to get everything done immediately so that we can close on October 1. The written date on our contract is October 8, but everyone is working to get everything done by October 1. How exciting! I can't believe that we may just leave here on September 30, and move into our brand new house the very next afternoon/evening!!!! I love it! I can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment