And now we wait.

Two days ago I finally picked up the phone and dialed a Realtor that I had been in email contact since before we moved to Texas (so we would occasionally email back and forth for about 10 months). I have been looking near daily at the listings of new homes on the market, price reductions, and offers again since before we even moved here. I finally saw a house that brought be to a point where it was time to look even if that meant that we would pay rent on an apartment and a house for a few months. So I made the call.

We set up a time Saturday (today) to meat at Starbucks and then go looking. I had mentioned to her 3 homes I was interested in and told her the 5 elementary schools (which just represent the neighborhoods I want to live in) and asked if she noticed anything that stood out to her in those areas. She came with 5 houses (all of which I had driven by in the day that I waited for the appointment). We tossed one out right away, it was in a great neighborhood but ugly street. The first house we looked at was a newer home, it had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, but the living space was a little to small downstairs and the yard was a bit to cramped.

The second house was in a great neighborhood but needed WAY too much work. The 3rd home, WE LOVED! It was a flip but a great one. It looked terrific. Light bright, open, large kitchen with lots of counter space. The appliances were a bit dated but in perfect condition, they literally looked brand new just 20 years old. It had split bedrooms, gas starter fireplace. The front looks funny in pictures but cute in real life. It has beautiful large crape myrtles on both sides of the front of the house, they have this amazing barkless trunks that I LOVE. Very large living area with windows to the tiled patio that is between the house and the garage (in the rear- we get an ally like on king of the hill ;-) that is just amazing. It also had brand new paint inside and out as well as new carpet. Nice ceiling fans and light fixtures too. Ok so just loved this house. Then we went to the last house which was the exact same floor plan but wasn't as nice. Now this last house was listed as having about 200 more sq ft as the one I loved. (even on the tax records). But the house was the exact same size. Soooooo which one is right. They are priced as though they are 200 sq ft different. So long story short....

We placed an offer tonight on the one we love! Our offer was a full price offer (house only on the market for 8 days) of $129900! Can you believe that that is 10k less than our first home 10 YEARS AGO! Houses here are still priced fairly reasonably in some neighborhoods so they do fly off the market pretty quickly if they are in good shape.


The house is on Stein Way... yes this is a play on words the whole neighborhood is musical names... alto avenue, sonata lane, cello court, Stradivarius lane, Bach Blvd... you get the point. So we wait. To see what they say. It is a solid offer, the only thing that they could really take issue with is that we are pushing the limits of the closing date. We are wanting it out as far as possible ... so 45 days from the end of the 10 day option period would make it May 9th... we pushed it to may 15th. The reason for this would be so our first payment would not be due until July 1 making it only 1+ a partial month of rent left on the apartment lease. WO0HOOO! Oh and this is a picture of Ian "Camping out" on the patio that can be seen clearly through a bunch of windows in the living room as well as french doors from the master bedroom. Needless to say the boys LOVED IT too.