The beginning of March was when I first told you that we were selling our house. Shortly after that post I went on a week long road trip so the process didn't really get started until the end of March. Once I returned from my trip we started the process of decluttering. Mostly we just packed away extra things and tried to minimize the items in each room to make the rooms look as big as possible. I think that it is important for a buyer to be able to visualize how they can live in the house themselves and too much stuff can get in the way of that. Too little stuff can also be a deterrent as well.
While we were decluttering, we looked at quite a few houses. During that time we also figured out a more solid max budget for this next house and were able to define exactly what we were looking for. Our list included granite counter tops, open floor plan, double vanity in the master bath...oh wait just kidding...that would be like an actual episode of house hunters. That show is so ridiculous sometimes! Our real list of wants were: three bedrooms on the same floor, a fenced backyard, attached 2 car garage, a kitchen similar to the size we have now, a big enough dining space for our current table, and a family room that could double as a playroom and sewing/craft area for me. The hardest part of that list of wants was the 3 bedrooms on the same floor. We looked at a lot of houses that almost met all of criteria but decided that in the current market it would be better to sell first.
So I spent my 6 day weekend Easter break finishing up the decluttering process and deep cleaning the house. It was a lot of work but it was great to get things moving forward. Things really became real the day that the for sale sign went up in our yard.
Unfortunately that excitement soon turned to frustration. The offer had a contingency that we find a house to buy in 3 weeks. We looked at a lot of houses and none of them were quite right. By our second week our realtor had a lead on a house that might be perfect but the sellers were buying a house and that deal ended up falling through so they decided not to list it that week. They ended up finding a house the next week and listing on the Tuesday of our final week (our deadline was that Friday). Unfortunately they listed it for $10K over what their realtor had originally said so even though we liked it, it was no longer in our budget.
It turned out to be a blessing however because the next day the house from the top of this post went on the market and it was perfect. We went to look at it that evening and loved it. We immediately put in an offer but another offer came in that night as well. I spent Thursday morning preparing myself to hear we didn't get the house but thankfully the news was the opposite. So with one day left until our deadline on the contingency on the offer on our house we finally found a house!
It was a frustrating and stressful process. Although it isn't over we have definitely gotten over some big hurdles. The inspections on both properties went well. The buyers of our house only asked us to clean the gutters. We asked our sellers to get some electrical issues fixed and they agreed to fix all of it. The appraisal on our current house happened yesterday. We are hoping that it appraises at the amount that we sold it for. I'm a little concerned since the competing offers ended up driving the price much higher than we thought it would. We couldn't get an appraisal scheduled on the house we are buying until June 13th which makes the time tight with our closing on June 22nd. We are crossing our fingers that all goes well so that we can still close on that date.
I had my 20 week ultrasound a few days after having our offer accepted on our new house. It was nice to be able to only have that to focus on instead of finding a house! We are proud to announce that we are expecting our 2nd girl!
I can't wait until I get to show you our new house. I already have so many ideas of projects for this home so this blog will full of house project posts in the future.
