Yup. You read that right. If you’ve been here for any amount of time, you know that for the last several years, we’ve been renting. We’ve always wanted to buy a house that needs work, and work on making improvements on it together. For four years since we’ve been married, we’ve saved money, paid off tons of debt, and waited patiently for this dream to become a reality. Being patient hasn’t always been easy, and we’ve been super frustrated in our rental homes.
But now, finally, we have our own house! I’ll be sharing some interior before pictures soon, but I wanted to share with you guys the story of this house with you guys. Our original plan was to purchase a “starter home,” make improvements to it, and sell it within a few years. We ended up finding this house that we thought we might be looking for in about ten years. It’s on a historic street where we live, with lots of beautiful homes. Picture the kind of street you drive down when you go look at Christmas lights. It’s actually the street that the local Christmas and 4th of July parade go down. It’s a little slice of americana, if you will. Many of the homes on this street have been re-done already (read: expensive), and this is one of the last ones that still need work. It was built in 1895 if you can believe it!
There was no way we should have been able to get this house. When it first came on the market, it was well out of our price range. We noticed it when it came on the market, but didn’t want to go look at it because it was just too high for us. It sat for a while, slowly dropping in price, but still beyond what we wanted to pay. Finally, it dropped in price again, this time somewhere in the range of where we were thinking, but still just a bit more than we were hoping to spend.
We called our realtor and asked about going to look at it and possibly putting in a low offer. He obliged us, even though we may have been crazy for wanting to put in a lower offer. We looked at it, absolutely loved it, but weren’t sure if the sellers would consider a lower offer, especially after having lowered the price already. We didn’t want to get our hopes up, but we really loved it, so that was difficult to say the least. Our realtor contacted the listing agent and asked if they would be willing to consider the amount we were hoping to get it for. They came back with a number that was still higher than we were hoping, so we thought it was going to be over.
But then, the next day, the listing agent called back and said that the sellers agreed to come all the way down to the price we were wanting! There is absolutely no way that should have happened. It was totally a God thing.
But if that wasn’t enough, we had another crazy God moment when we went to the 4th of July parade. On the 4th, we had already put in an offer and it had been accepted. We decided to go to the parade (remember, the parade route goes right down the street this house sits on), and set up our chairs in front of the house that we would soon be buying. We noticed that there was a family sitting on the front steps, and I curiously wondered if they were the owners (the house was empty when we looked at it). I decided to introduce myself just because and ask them if they were the owners. It turns out that they weren’t, but they had lived in it for over twenty years from the 80’s until the mid 2000’s. They had done many updates and knew a ton of historic information about it. They were so kind and so excited that we were going to be purchasing the house.
They were so sweet they even insisted we take this picture which is such a treasure! We met Paula, and her daughter, who grew up in the house. They had such fond memories of their time in this house, and we’re excited to honor this historic home and continue the long legacy it has.
I know this post has been incredibly lengthy already, so I’ll wrap it up. We are so excited to roll up our sleeves and get to work on this thing! And obviously there will be lots to share here, so stay tuned. That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!
