First Time Home-Buying: The Sign

Keeping things by the book, my husband and I have moved from the honeymoon stage to the next big phase of our relationship: buying a home. We are both first time home-buyers so we know there’s a lot to learn. Thankfully one of our godfathers works in a mortgage bank so we have someone to teach us what this is all about.

I realized it’s not very hard to learn – all the lingo, the process, the advantages. But, we first decided to buy our first home 3 weeks ago and since then, we have sat down and talked so much so seriously about one thing than we ever did before. Nothing prepared me for a process like this.

As designers, we know what we want. People repeatedly told us you’ll never get what you really want. They said you would be searching for months and you’d be looking at so many houses. So it was quite a surprise to me that within 2 weeks, we found the house that we really wanted, and then some.

Of course it made it easy that we were mainly looking for a brand new home. Though money is tight, it felt to me that if I am going to spend so much money and I would be getting myself into a loan anyway, I would much rather get a new home that I really like that would make me happy than something that I would be complaining about because it’s not the way I wanted it to be.

This week, three weeks into our home-buying adventure, we put in an offer to the first home we even considered. It feels weird to me because I somehow feel it is not right that there is actually a chance that we’ll get the house we want and that for a first house we are actually getting a brand new home and that it did not take us forever to find it and decide. Somehow, it was surreal that a dream could have the possibility to be real so soon. It was more that fact that was giving me doubts about pursuing this house. It felt as if I didn’t search enough. But after two intense weeks of looking at houses and sitting down and talking about it, I felt that if I will stretch this decision, I wouldn’t ever make the decision. So, we just decided.

Plus the offer was hard to pass up. New home, seller pays for all closing costs and the fee to buy down the rate to 4.75%, reducing the lot premium from $26,000 to $2,000. Even I, who 3 weeks ago had no knowledge about the real estate business, knew that that is good deal.

It’s a waiting game right now if the builder accepts the offer. Yesterday we felt we signed our lives away when we signed the fattest check we have ever written. Of course we believe that our future is all God’s will. But there is nothing wrong with letting God know what I am wishing for. And of course, nothing stopped the sales manager from putting up this sign to hold the home in my name.