Our home buying story is later than I meant it to be (#storyofmylife) but it feels appropriate to share it exactly one year after closing on our first home.
Last spring, thanks to a rescheduled 5K, we checked out a few open houses to see what types of homes were in our target budget. We were happily surprised to discover that after years of aggressively saving, we were finally in a position to begin our hunt in earnest.
We connected with an amazing realtor, Danny, through our church, and he chatted with us about the process, essentially giving us a one-on-one home buying class. We then met with his recommended mortgage broker to run the numbers, and started looking at listings.
The first Saturday in June, we went with Danny to look at a few different homes. It felt like a great kickoff to our search, helping us get on the same page with Danny in terms of what we wanted. We also continued to scan through more MLS listings from Danny, and I noticed a one that looked promising, with an open house the next day. Danny wasn't available but encouraged us to take a look. After church, we dragged one of our architect friends along for an additional perspective, and we were pleasantly surprised at what we found. With tired paint, cosmetic plaster cracks, and an aging bathroom, it didn't show well. But the bones were good, and we knew it could be a great blank slate for us to make our own.
We went back on Monday with Danny, and decided to make an offer for a little under asking. We wrote a letter sharing our hopes for our future in the home, and got all our paperwork together in despite a hectic day and a quick turnaround. And then we waited.
Tuesday, we found out there was one other offer, and the seller was asking if we wanted to increase ours. I still distinctly remember sitting in our office library, overlooking the river, discussing what we should do. We went up to asking, and by the end of the day the seller accepted our offer. We were shocked and elated. We assumed, given the Boston market, we would have to go through this process multiple times before we would get this far.
Our home inspection didn't raise any red flags, and so we moved on to finalizing the mortgage documents. Since we stuck to our budget, our only concern was the appraisal. Thankfully that went even better than we had hoped, and we cleared our final hurdle.
On Friday, August 14, 2015, we headed to our attorney's office in Charlestown for closing. We signed a massive amount of paperwork and had the opportunity to meet the seller, who attended in person (in Massachusetts it's apparently very common for sellers to leave closing to their attorneys). After everything was in order, we headed to Cutty's for a celebratory lunch with a couple of our dearest Brookline friends as we waited for the call letting us know the title went through. By the end of the day, we were officially home owners!
We had two weeks overlap with our apartment lease, and we had grand aspirations to have every single space painted before we moved in. We only made it as far as the living room, but that didn't deter our dreaming.
By the end of the month, we had successfully transported all our worldly belongings to our new home (thanks to Zipcars, a couple Zipvans, and help from amazing friends). It was a bittersweet goodbye. Our apartment had been home for almost six years, and we loved our location and our community. But we were excited to grow our roots in our new neighborhood (and cut our commute down to practically nothing).
One year in, and we love it. We've put in countless hours making this place ours. While it's a work in progress, we're enjoying the process. And we know how lucky we are to have so many friends who we can also call neighbors. The time we have to invest in those relationships is priceless. We do miss being around the corner from all our Brookline friends and favorite spots, but we always have a great excuse to head back across the river for a visit. And we're so excited to see what the coming years have in store for our happy little home.