Finding Our Home

In purchasing a home we always have a 10 minute radius from Marcus' work.  At least that is the goal.  If Marcus has eye trouble and can't drive then it is a double commute for the kids and I so 20 minutes is our max goal.  It does limit us in where we can live. 

After driving, driving, and more driving, we finally narrowed down an area we felt was right for our family.  It is amazing to me how this happens.  How you can sort of feel where you are supposed to live.  (It is also amazing to me that we purchased our first home in another state without ever visiting or stepping foot in it!) 

The best part about this entire process was that our area happened to be part of the school boundaries for one of the schools we were considering for Reagan.  Because we were looking at a specific district and also the dual language programs we were pretty specific on two elementary schools.  (One school offered Mandarin Chinese - Marcus' first choice- and the other offered Spanish.  We let Reagan choose.) 

Our area also pretty much guaranteed an older home that would need work.  We both had some expectations.  I wanted a big master bath tub, Marcus wanted a nice garage, I wanted a great kitchen, and we both wanted a big yard.  Ha.  We should have kept our wants to ourselves.  Our house has none of the above.  But it is our house.  We felt it the first time we stepped foot in it.

I noticed a house go on the market late one evening and we were there early the next morning.  We put in a full price offer that afternoon.  Unfortunately, so did two others later that same day.  That was a Saturday.  On Monday we received notice that we, and everybody else, would need to submit best offers by Wednesday.  Later we found out their were 11 interested parties by Wednesday.  I promise, it would shock you if you saw our home.

We decided to walk through the house one more time and felt the same way.  This was our house.  It needed work but there was an amazing feeling inside the home.  Our kids felt the same way.  We submitted a new offer, nothing extravagent, but a fair price.  Tuesday evening we received word that the owner wanted a letter from all offers telling about themselves, schooling, jobs, family etc.  Marcus and I threw together a letter Monday morning in record time and that was that.

We found out the next day that our offer was excepted.  Our agent said, it wasn't your offer that got the house.  It was the letter.  The lady that owned the home is still attending our same church congregation and she is 94 years old.  She built the house with her husband.  She came by the first week we lived here and brought us a house warming gift.  She said she stayed up until 1am reading and re-reading our letter.

When we bought our home in Minnesota we had the same feeling, it was our home.  Several times it our transaction almost fell through but it worked out in crazy ways in the end.  This time I was more calm.  I knew it was our house.  It was the same feeling.

It is great to remember all these feelings because we are in the midst of construction right now and I want to pull my hair out:).  It will all be worth it, I just know it.