It started back in September when my current landlord suggested he wanted to sell his house and he gave us the opportunity to make an offer before he listed it. We did a bit of digging and came up with a fair price for it, somewhere around 15% less than he thinks it’s worth. He, of course, turned down the offer. This happened on Thanksgiving.
Now we’d done some additional legwork since we decided that if it was at all workable, we would buy a house, even if it wasn’t the one we’re currently in. That meant we had a mortgage pre-approval basically sorted. We had decided, however, to hold off until I got back from my trip to Albuquerque (which was looming at that point) before we did any looking around, just so I’d be available to sign papers. As luck would have it, things didn’t work out quite according to plan.
The day after I hit the road, my parents tripped over a realtor when they were coming to visit. So we had a realtor. They also put an offer on a house but that offer was declined. This turned out to be a good thing even though the house would have been a good deal. It was probably an emotional offer, though, so it was probably good that it fell through.
Later in the week, though, the realtor found a what he thought was a great deal and he passed it along. I looked at the listing online and agreed with the assessment of my sister that it would be a good place. So an offer was put in on the Sunday (the second day of the drive back) and was accepted mere hours later with no dickering.
I found out when I strolled in the door that evening. Then there was a bunch of legwork the following week (which I had off from work) which got insurance and a few other bits dealt with. Everything we could do was done at that point and it was just waiting for paperwork to go through.
Well, today I got the call from the lawyer’s office saying the paperwork for the mortgage had arrived and it was time to get that signed. So this Friday, we get that done.
It still doesn’t quite feel real that in under three weeks, we’ll be owning a house. It probably won’t feel real for a while after that.