Sunday, June 21, 2015

new babies bring new houses....

What is it about new babies and new homes coming at the same time?    7 years ago we moved from our first home to my mom's house while we were trying to close on our current home ("H House" is the nick name I gave it).   We had a 10 day old baby.   I slightly lost my mind. I documented it quite well back then and it makes me laugh thinking of all the craziness we went through.  

Eloise is not quite a month old and we have an accepted offer on a home that is pretty close to our dream home (ok... not DREAM home... because well, I can dream pretty damn big, but this house is perfecto for us!).   I'm going to attempt to blog more often and document our process to moving into "Apple Creek"

For the past few years I've been itching to move... out of Jackson.  Out of Michigan.  Well, we went back and forth for some time about moving to North Carolina.  After our recent trip to the coast for spring break, we finally decided that instead of moving to North Carolina, we are going to stick around Michigan.   We would miss the Great Lakes, Mackinaw, sand dunes, camping, family, etc.... we just can't leave.  Sure, winters suck... but that's when you plan a vacay somewhere warm in the dead of winter!    We decided that once we are settled into a new home and have our finances all set up (aka... all of our grown up responsibilities that our financial advisor has us investing in such as IRA's, life insurance policies etc....), we hope to invest in an oceanfront rental in North Carolina.  It'd be an investment, and we'd also be able to use it for vacations as well... so it's a win win (and somehow I'd like to make it a work expense and do something like offer it up to my team members as a reward/incentive/rank congrats etc).  We'll see how that pans out.  First focus is on getting into a home on land for horses and kits to run.

Where was I going here?? Oh yeah, Michigan.  So, we decided to stay in Michigan but neither of us *love* Jackson... and since a job does not hold us back here, we decided we're going to head on out.  We casually have been browsing the market to see what was out there... we've looked at a handful of houses over the past few months but nothing was "right".  We need land for a few horses and quads.   And we need a larger house because... kids (and dogs).   We'd find THE PERFECT property, but the house was small/weird layout/needs too much work, or we'd find THE PERFECT house and it was not on land or something.

We hooked up with a friend who is also a realtor in the area we had decided to move to.  On a whim, we decided to have her take us to see 4 houses that had been on our watch list on Realtor.com.  One house had my eye for sure after I saw the floor-plan on the realtors website, but I wasn't planning on making any commitment this soon.   We knew we weren't going to send the boys back to Michigan Center this fall and were okay with finding another district for a year, or homeschooling, or driving them to the school we planned to move to.   We knew with our list of "must-haves" that it might take awhile to find the right property.

When we walked into Apple Creek I'll be honest... the oak trim and doctors office colors in the house really blocked my mojo.   I was hesitant.   I liked the house.  I really liked the house.  I just wasn't sure if I was supposed to find THE ONE.  We spent some time there and honestly, I kind of felt like I did when I walked through H House the first time.  Kind of like... ehh it's okay, but I'm not moved.

We spend the afternoon and evening discussing the houses and the more we discussed it, the more we thought about it, the more we felt like this was the right one.  I began moving ourselves into the house in my mind.  My brain started decorating and remodeling and I saw myself watching the kids play in the woods and looking out my office window at my horses in the pasture.  We really started to fall in love.

We set up another appointment to go back to the house and walk through again, this time bringing Ryan's dad and my friend LeeAnn.  I wanted other opinions.   I wanted someone to tell me if there was something I'd end up hating in the long run, or to point out things I might be missing.  In the meantime, I spoke with our mortgage person and got our finances in order.

The kids came with us to the house and after a good hour and half of checking everything out, we realized we wanted to put an offer in on it.   Ryan's dad- Mr. Negative- had a paper to write a list of anything he thought could be a "con" about this house.   Before we left he said "Well... I don't have anything on my paper....".   I'm pretty sure this house is meant to be.

The next evening we put in an offer and heard back from the sellers within an hour.  We negotiated back and forth and within 3 hours we'd settled on an offer and they accepted.  Kind of surreal!  I'm anxious to get the ball rolling.   Our realtor is out of town this week and the following week we're on vacation, so getting both of us there for inspections is proving to be tricky.

So, here we go again... new baby, new house.  Hopefully this transition won't be quite as stressful or crazy.  We're not planning to list our house for sale until we move into the new house, which will make things a lot easier.  The thought of packing up 4 kids and 3 dogs and getting the house in show condition makes me cringe.  The only downside is the house will be empty when it shows, and that means all the awful dings and marks and scratches on the walls from 7 years of living will be loud and clear HAHA!


2 comments:

  1. I am sure you are right; there is a correlation between new babies and new houses. Babies tend to create upheaval of the good kind. I do sympathize with your showing of your old house. All the dirty door knobs and scratches on the walls look huge in an empty house in the cold light of day.

    Julia Stewart @ Daytona Buyers Agent

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