Almost Homeowners!

In just a few short days, Marc and I will be homeowners! We are scheduled to sign the papers at the title company today or tomorrow and will close escrow on November 6th or 7th.

I want to recap the timeline and process of buying our first home so we can remember this exciting time of our lives.

The house is 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 car garage, almost 1,700 square feet and a perfect sized yard for a dog to run around and play. It was a short sale but the process went a lot quicker than most short sales are moving right now. We submitted the offer in late August and found out that there were 4 other offers. It was the third offer we had put on a house (the first house had a total of 22 offers, the second had 15 offers!) and we knew from only a short 15-minute showing, that it was the place we would make our home. The home we would come home to after our wedding, the home we would bring our future children home from the hospital to, the home where we would host Christmas for our families, the home where we would really begin our life together. In order to better the chances of our offer being chosen, Marc and I wrote a letter to the sellers. Yes, we wrote a sappy letter on stationary and included it with the offer. And guess what?!

The next day, August 30, 2012, our realtor called and shared the news we were waiting for: the sellers chose our offer!!! As a counter-offer, we agreed to allow the sellers to live in the home until December 1st at no cost. We worked out that it wouldn't be more than a couple weeks after we closed escrow and we really felt for the sellers - they're an older couple in their 60s-70s who appear to have some health issues. Marc and I decided we didn't want to lose the home over just a few weeks and we hope that if we (or our parents/grandparents) were in the same position, someone would show us/them some compassion as well, so we agreed.

The next step was to wait for the bank to approve the short sale which was estimated to be in about 30 days. And on October 5th, after signing what felt like hundreds of documents and emailing back and forth with our realtor, our broker and the listing agent, we received the approval from the bank!

The appraisal was ordered and it came back above our offer, which was great news! Next, we hired an inspector to come out and take a look at the property and make sure everything was in good shape. The inspection was a little awkward because Marc and I both wanted our dads to be there since they're very handy and hadn't seen the house yet, Marc's mom came along as well. In addition, the sellers were present which was weird because they followed us everywhere and we didn't really feel comfortable enough to poke around. At least we got to spend some quality time in the home and solidify the decision we made to buy the house.

We have lifted all the contingencies and are now just waiting for the papers to be ready to sign (and for mine and Marc's schedules to cooperate so we can go sign them...).

Here is a sneak peak of the front of the house - just from the listing:

{from the listing on Trulia.com}

I can't believe how quickly it feels like this process is going. We are beyond excited to move out of our TINY one bedroom apartment into our first home and make it our own. We already have so many plans for painting and decorating other changes we want to make to it. This is a time of our lives that we will never forget!