Home Update

We found a house!

You guys, this house hunting has had its ups and downs. We had been to see more than 10 houses by the time we found this one. Mark was available to see it one day on his lunch break when I wasn't able to meet him so I said you know what, you go see it and if you think its worth it then we'll schedule a time for me to come out. That was the weariness of house hunting setting in! So Mark went to see it and loved it right away so of course I came out. I was a little hesitant - afraid to get my hopes up - but when I walked in I fell in love. The high ceilings and open floor plan was a sight for sore eyes that had only been seeing walls to knock down in other houses.

That weekend we had our parents come out and take a look at the property. We value their opinions and wisdom and we're so grateful that they're willing to lend us their eyes and thoughts.

We put the offer on it that Monday and it was rejected. There was some back and forth and we were holding strong at our initial offer because we felt it was our highest and best. Eventually they said they couldn't accept that offer. We were disappointed but I looked at Mark after he got off the phone and told him I had a feeling that we weren't done with that house yet. We gave it over to the Lord and knew that either that was the house for us and it end up working out or there was something better.

A few days later they contacted us again with a new, lower counter offer and we agreed.

We've waited for the home inspection and appraisal to go through before making the official announcement. I wish I had a better picture but I'm just so excited that we've found a new house!

A huge perk of this house? It's only 1 1/2 miles from my sister Erin's! 

We have a lot of work to do in the next two weeks. We have to be moved out of our house by May 16th and we get to move in to our new place on May 20th. We'll be staying with Erin and her husband for the days in between. We've been slowly packing up because we've always known we had to be out by the 16th so we're not in a frenzy by any means, but it is becoming more real now that we have a place to move in to.

I can't wait to share more pictures! 

Picky Eater

This girl. 

She is the pickiest toddler I have ever met.

Eating oatmeal - a breakfast favorite.

Getting Your House Ready To Sell

Okay, so I'm writing this not because I think I'm an expert at selling homes. This is our first time going through the process and it's had it's stressful moments for sure. Though we did do most of the things listed, I decided to write this post because of what we've noticed walking into other houses. In our experience so far it's definitely been harder to imagine ourselves moving into a home that's currently occupied compared to one that is vacant, but it's almost impossible to see the potential of a house when it's looks uncared for or generally unkept.

We've looked at around 10 houses and we've seen some that show beautifully (but just weren't for us) and others that looked like the owners didn't even know people would be stopping by. Because of this I thought it would be fun to put together a list of things that could be helpful in sprucing up your house to help its full potential shine when possible buyers come to see it.

Sold.

Remember a little over a month ago when I shared that we had put our house on the market? I told you then that the day we put it up for sale we had 3 different people schedule to come see it within the first 48 hours. Well, by the end of those 48 hours we had 2 different offers on our house.

We were in shock! We hadn't even made it to the weekend, which is the typical busy time of showing a house to potential buyers. We put it up Tuesday morning and Thursday night we were reviewing the offers and signing the contracts to sell our home.