From House to Home: Finding the Right Home for Us

Long story short: We bought a house!

Instead of ending this post right there, I’m making this into an entire series and you’ll be hearing about our new home for a long time coming. Get ready to learn way more than you anticipated knowing about our adventure into homeownership.

The backstory

We moved to North Carolina in November of 2016 with the full intention of making the land of the pines where we settled down for the rest of our lives. But, just a couple of months into it, we decided we would move back to Tampa once we had been in NC for a year, mostly due to work obligations.

During that time we tried for a baby, got pregnant, and knew it would be best on me and baby, and on our bank account, to have the baby in North Carolina, extending our stay by six months. Those six months is where our home buying journey began.

Looking for houses

We had an idea in mind of what we were looking for in a home:

• On land (minimum 2 acres)
• No HOA/CDD (we want to raise goats and chickens)
• Split floor plan (ideal since my husband works nights and needs a space that’s quiet during the day so he can sleep)
• Close to family and friends

We also preferred an area in a great school district that wasn’t too far from my husband’s job. We wanted a home that wasn’t too much of a fixer upper, and practically move in ready with the exception of aesthetic upgrades. We also had a budget of $415,000 based on a 20% downpayment to avoid PMI (private mortgage insurance).

We knew buying a home closer to the top of our budget would mean it had to be pretty close to having everything we were looking for because any major upgrades or repairs would either need to go on a payment plan (we are charge everything and pay it off in less than 30 days people so didn’t want to do the financing) or would have to be put off until we recovered financially from our purchase. We also knew that buying a home for much less than our top budget, but that required a bunch of upgrades or repairs, wouldn’t work either because then we’d still be spending about the same out of pocket.

To say finding a home that struck the perfect balance was near impossible is the biggest understatement. Given the real estate climate right now there just wasn’t a house that checked all of our boxes. We had MLS listings set up for Tampa Bay and the surrounding areas. We were even looking at homes $20,000+ above our budget “in case” they had a price decrease. We considered very cheap fixer uppers, but ultimately didn’t want to renovate for years on end with kids around.

Let’s just say that looking at homes was just so much work and disappointment. It didn’t help that we starting looking while we lived two states away! We had our real estate agent and friends go check out homes we were interested in and send us video. We saw a couple homes we were in love with that turned out to have prior sinkhole claims!

Once we moved back to Tampa, though, we could go looking at homes ourselves and really expedite the process. But do you know how many homes are shown on the MLS one way, but you go to see it in person only to be disappointed by how dreary and broken down it actually is? I mean, someone is doing some major Photoshop on the photos of their listings out there, I couldn’t believe it! It felt like we were looking at a new home or two every other day.

The one that got away

I call it the house that got away because we made an offer on a beautiful home in a gated equestrian neighborhood with other beautiful homes and a true sense of community. This particular house was grandfathered in as one of the very first homes in the neighborhood and therefore didn’t have any HOA rules or fees. Near the top of our budget, I thought it could use some aesthetic upgrades, but nothing too crazy and nothing that couldn’t be done over time.

We put in an offer the same day we saw the house, but before we received a response, another home came on the market that was completely upgraded inside, on more acreage, and for $100,000 less. We contacted the listing agent to set up a viewing and it turned out to be the same listing agent as the one who was selling the equestrian house. Whoops. He wasn’t pleased that mere hours after we put an offer in on one listing, we were asking about viewing another. In hindsight, maybe we should’ve done something different here, but I didn’t feel right moving forward on the first house if this one that looked nicer for way cheaper could be ours.

Long story short: We saw the less expensive home the next day, loved it and wanted to move forward, got a hard no on the offer we put in on the first house, and then asked for seller’s disclosures on the second house. The seller’s disclosures on the second home showed significant prior termite damage. Ughhhh. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about living in Florida it’s that if someone has to actually move out of their home for a period of time because they have to repair beams in their home that are bad due to termites, you don’t buy the home. We would’ve had to tent our house every so often just to try to prevent them from returning. And the soil probably housed the termites and etc etc.

By the time that was figured out, we went back to the equestrian house to up our offer and it was already pending with another offer (it ended up selling for $5,000 more than our offer which was a dagger to the heart).

Back to the drawing board and back to looking at so many homes, my head was spinning.

Finding THE house

Mike and I were on our way back home from the first date night we have had since way before baby #2 was born when we checked the MLS and saw the home that would eventually be ours. It was a Thursday evening and we had just finished seeing Deadpool 2 in theaters. We called our agent and he immediately arranged a showing for the next day (Friday). We saw the house around 2pm, by 6pm we had an offer in, and by 2pm the next day (Saturday) we had an offer accepted.

We were pending purchase on a home! You all, it literally went that fast. The only box this home doesn’t check is it’s not on at least 2 acres. But, clocking in at 1.62 acres, it still feels so large and it’s on a corner lot with so much space. We saw homes on over two acres in our budget, but half of the acreage was taken up by conservations or lowlands. We wanted two usable acres and this is the closest we found that wasn’t crazy expensive and whose house wasn’t completely dilapidated.

The neighborhood is a great one, the school district is all A schools, we are within 30 minutes (with traffic) of most everyone we know, and most importantly, the bones of this home are the most ideal. As long as it’s in average condition as-is, we are more than happy with putting our spin on it with new paint, flooring, a brand new kitchen (SQUEEEAAALLLLL)!

We’ll be doing a ton of upgrades to this house, but it’s essentially move-in ready and everything else will come in time. I can’t believe that after 11 years, 4 moves, and 2 kids we finally get to buy a house together that we can raise our children in.

Next up: The purchasing process. And what a process it was…

Read part two: The Purchase Process