The Tangrens

So while I was in Michigan...we bought a house!!!

Yeah...that's right we BOUGHT a HOUSE!!!

In the last two or three months we'd made offers on two houses but before they could accept or deny ours they got a better offer. Then the last house we looked at they got a better offer than we could make before we could even MAKE it. I wasn't too terribly excited about them but Derek was. (seems we have a bit of a differing opinion on what what makes the house perfect) Because of this Derek insisted that he was NOT going to look at houses while I was gone. I told him that he should because the perfect house could come on the market and we'd miss it. As it turned out he was so busy with work that he didn't have time to even look at the emails our Realtor sent every morning of the new listings. But I kept looking...

Then the interest rates dropped to under 5%. I began looking more carefully and looking at higher priced houses figuring with the rates so low we could afford a bit more.

On the 17th this house came on the market that looked interesting. I showed it to Derek and he agreed that it was interesting so I emailed our Realtor to get Derek in to see the house. So on Saturday the 20th he saw the house after first calling me to ask what I wanted him to look at. I gave him a detailed list; how many cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, is the light and fan in the bathroom on one switch or two, is there a linen closet, coat closet, game closet, measure the living room, bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, how many drawers and cupboards in the bathroom, does it have a hand towel ring, color of paint in the rooms, what is the thermostat set at, what do they pay on average for utilities etc... Derek called me back afterward with a positive report and we considered if we wanted to make an offer and what it would be. By that evening we'd made the offer.(they had until Monday to give us a response) Monday night at 9 pm (11 Michigan time) Derek called to say they counter offered. I didn't want to pay more than what we offered but we decided to sleep on it. The next day he headed to Michigan before the sun was up. When he got to Michigan we were off to try to get Hyrum's pictures taken with Santa (more about that later) and a stop at the store before heading finally home to my parents house. Then our Realtor Sandi called while we were at the store to see if we'd made a decision regarding the house and to let us know that she was heading out of town for Christmas in an hour. We didn't know what to do. We had kind of decided to counter offer but logistically we didn't have time to get home print sign and fax a counter offer to them before Sandi had to leave. Derek called her back and told her the situation, she told us that they couldn't do any lower than what they'd counter offered so it was a done deal. It was over! We went home very disappointed.

Then a half an hour later Sandi called back and said that someone had taken a cut somewhere and that they'd lowered thier counter offer to just about what we were going to counter offer. We accepted. So on Christmas eve we came officially under contract. Merry Christmas!!

Then after Christmas we arranged for an inspection and started to get everything going with financing. On our way to New York we looked over the disclosure and read through the loan application. We got there on New Years eve. Then we signed the loan papers...

And set off to try to find a place that could fax it which was still open on New Years eve. Not so easy. And HOLY COW I had no idea it cost so much to fax things!! Wow!

So after walking through with the inspector the day after we got home rushing around to find a plumber before due diligence expired and making a list of everything I want to do before we move all of our things in we close on the 20th of January ( if all goes well) and we'll be home owners shortly thereafter. Oh My!

Do these look like people that know what they are getting themselves into? Didn't think so!