OK, so about Friday

We closed on our house :)

We've been in the process of getting pre-approved, house hunting and closing for what seems like ever but now, we are so, so, sosososososo close we can taste it. I was close to talking about it earlier but I didn't want to jinx us by sharing before it was a done deal. And as of Friday - it IS!

We've been actively searching since June (July?) It's been awhile. And in this market, with pre-approval, you'd think we'd have an easy time finding something! In typical fashion for us though, every step of the way we had to overcome some hurdles. We ended up making offers on THREE houses in total.

The first was beautiful, had a large yard and was less than 10 years old. Not in a "cookie cutter" neighborhood but nearby a nice new development that would provide lots of playmates for the boys. We made our offer, found out later the same day that the house was a mere 3 days from going into foreclosure (sad for the sellers but hot-damn! good for us!) prepared for a possible (but unlikely) counter-offer and basically, just felt fortunate that we had found such a great deal! Then, 2 days later, we found out the house had already *been* in foreclosure for a couple of days when we made our offer. And the bank hadn't yet decided when they would be considering offers on it. So, we were basically out of luck.

The second house, while in a nice neighborhood and already empty just felt not-quite-right to me. I had a feeling that maybe the sellers would be a pain to deal with. The house had been on the market for 18 months and they had an abnormally high deposit requirement. We liked the house and saw a lot of potential though so again, we made an offer. And the offer expired without them ever responding to it (and let me say here that it was a VERY reasonable offer...below asking, obviously, but not outrageously so. My former-real-estate agent dad assured us it was a fair offer) Your house is up for sale for 18 months and you don't even take the time to counter? Huh?

So finally. This house. This is the one I wanted to make an offer on from the beginning. An elementary school in the neighborhood. Quiet but still lots of young families and kids around. Walking distance to the town area (not a tiny quaint little walk-around town but people, there *is* a Starbucks within walking distance!) At the end of a street that ends in a cul-de-sac. A beautiful kitchen/dining area (that I will change eventually but it works great for now) Four bedrooms (my own office - FINALLY) all small but all perfectly adequate. A large family "hang" out area. It's perfect :) The owners though. They didn't want to let go. They fought us every step of the way (apparently, they were working under the delusion that this is a *seller's* market. Um. No.) And we weren't too keen on meeting them for closing. I won't get into too much detail but there were tears involved. Oh, and the title company's representative telling us something to the effect of "this was the first time ever that I thought the seller might not sign their papers" Lovely. But in the end, they did.

And now, they have till the end of the month to GET OUT. Because it's our now. And they're renting from us :) And we're busy making plans for decorating (little by little...starting with the boys' room so they have something cool and completely finished to welcome them) We haven't packed yet but basically, we never unpacked so we don't expect it will be too difficult!

Oh, and the house meets all of the boys' (OK, Jake's) requirements for a new house. There are indeed stairs.

So, as we take possession and start redecorating and moving in I'll share more pictures. This is just the front, taken from the realtor's site when the house was still listed. It's not listed anymore though. Cause we bought it :)

(Oh, and the digi goodies from scrapgirls and scrapartist)