Buying a Home Part IV: Closing Time
Apr 9th, 2010 by Carlos
This is part IV of a series on buying our first home. Part I was about us getting started, Part II was about the beginning of our search, and Part III dealt with a couple of close calls and the fallout with our realtor. Today I’ll talk about how we knew we found the right place and the process of putting in an offer.
After the fallout with our broker, we decided to take a break from looking. Deep down it felt like we weren’t ever going to buy a place. In two years we had seen over 80 places, been kind of interested in two of them but we still hadn’t put it any offers. Not we were all on our own and it looked like there was no hope. The Obama tax credit came, went, and then was extended and I didn’t care. The rates were still low and I didn’t care.
It was obvious: we were not going to be buying a home anytime soon.
But Redfin is very addicting. Every other week or so, M would email me some places she found and I would do the same. The reactions were typically some version of “Eh…” Nothing out there was very impressive. Then one day M sent along three or four links that looked very promising. They had most of the amenities we wanted and the pictures looked above average. Nothing exciting, but better than what we had seen in a LONG time.
And that got us excited.
So we decided to check them out. It was January and winter was in full effect, but we decided these places were all deserving. We weren’t very optimistic—how could we be after 80+ viewings—but finally agreed to check these out. And that’s when we had to make a decision: do we arrange the viewings ourselves or do we call our estranged broker? M had saved me from sending him a scathing email after our fallout, so it wasn’t like I’d have to come back groveling to him. We were on the fence: he knew his business and was clearly a good broker despite our differences.
So we emailed him the places and told ourselves this would be the last time. We thought these places were better than anything we had seen online for a long time so this was our “last attempt” with this broker. If anything weird/uncomfortable happened from here on out, it would officially be the end.
The first place was great. It was a little small but the unit was well taken care of and had a lot of stuff we liked. The next two were not good—too small and weird layouts. Then we walked into a place and as soon as the door opened we both went “Wow.” As we walked into the master bedroom and our broker chatted up the broker showing the place, M came up to me and whispered (a little too loudly), “I want this place!”
I knew we were in trouble right then—falling in love with a place can be very dangerous as it can cloud your judgement and make you take rash decisions. Which is exactly what we did—when we got home we called our broker with the message he thought we’d never send him: let’s put in an offer. I did a bunch of research to come up with what I thought was a little bit lower than a “fair” price to get the negotiations started and after two days and some back and forth with the sellers, we had finally bought a place.
The search was over. M and I were finally going to be homeowners. We have moved into our new place and let me tell you—it’s a very special feeling knowing that you own the walls around you, the appliances you cook with, and the closets you put all your crap in.
I love it.
Stay tuned for another post on everything I learned from this process…there is a lot to cover!
This post was included in the Carnival of Money Stories and the Money Hackers Carnival. Make sure to check out the other posts included.
[...] The Writer’s Coin - Becoming First Time Homebuyers [...]