Austin's Multitasking Bride

Today's bride sure is a busy one!  She is oftentimes juggling a full time career, college or grad school, and sometimes a family while planning her wedding.  Over the past few years I have heard something from brides that is becoming more common - "we're buying our first home while we plan our wedding!"  Wow!  Purchasing what for most people are the two greatest expenses in one's life at the same time is quiet an undertaking!  My husband and I recently purchased our first home and let me say, for those who do this...you are much stronger (and patient) than I!  For those of you getting ready to start the journey to home buying, I thought I would share our experience!

Moving out of our rental home

My husband and I had been considering purchasing a home, but weren't quite sure if we were ready.  The crash of 2008 hit us hard so we were quite nervous about such a large financial responsibility.  Thanks to my mother, she took it upon herself to call a realtor, Thomas, and tell him we were looking for a home.  You can imagine my surprise when one mildly cool December day he called me asking if he could be of assistance!  After a brief conversation he felt confident we could get qualified.  Getting the pre-approval letter was actually the easy part.  Just a few papers to sign, some financial documents to hand over and we were pre-approved within a week!  

My boys were fascinated with the truck

Shortly after the January Bridal Extravaganza we started looking at potential homes!  I always thought this would be fun casually touring all these beautiful homes!  Boy was I wrong!  Right now the Austin market is crazy!  Homes are flying off the market within days.  Yes, that's right...I said days!  Thomas would call us and we would rush to see a house, many times by the time we arrived there was already a contract on it.  We searched for about two weeks.  As we were driving to see one home we passed another.  I loved the outside and asked about it.  Even though we hadn't scheduled to look at it, Thomas knocked on the door and asked if we could see it.  The owners were gracious enough to offer a tour!  The house was perfect for us!  It had everything we needed and a lot of our wants too!  The house had been put on the market 3 days prior.  That evening, we put in an offer! The next day the seller countered and we accepted!  We were now under contract for our first home!  And that was the easy part! 

My Big Helpers

The next few weeks were relatively quiet.  We had to sign many many documents and file lots of paperwork and financials.  Everything seemed to be going well and we were set to close for the last week in March.  We had given notice to our landlord, the rental truck had been reserved, and the house was nearly packed.  And then a bomb dropped...the appraisal came back less than the contract amount!  After much frustration and banter we were able to get the appraiser to re-evaluate.  This took nearly a week!  Thankfully, he was able to get the appraisal up to where we needed to be.  Unfortunately, this was 4 days before we were supposed to move.  And that meant closing would not happen on Tuesday as we had planned...it was rescheduled for Friday.  Snag #2, some paperwork didn't get filed correctly and now we had to wait another week to close.  Snag #3...we had to be out of our house by Sunday!  Back to the drawing board with the seller.  Thankfully, our sellers were so kind.  They no longer occupied the home and allowed us to move in that weekend and rent the house from them!  So...a moving we did! 

Home Sweet Home

We used our week as renters of our own home to begin the unpacking process and paint my oldest son's room.  I had promised we could design his room together so I wanted to make that my first priority in the house.  That following Monday we were on target to close the next day.  And another snag!  Some closing documents were not ordered in time and closing was delayed 2 more days!  Finally, on Thursday (some 3 weeks after we were supposed to close) we finally did!  There was a celebration in the title office!  I passed out a cake to my realtor and my mortgage lender.  They worked so hard for us and I figure they could use a little treat!  Apparently they thought the same of us as we were gifted a nice bottle of Pinot Noir.  And so ends the journey of purchasing our first home!  It was a little more stressful, took a lot longer, but certainly worth it in the end!