Is it possible the house hunt is really over? Will we get used to taking back our weekends? Just kidding, all our weekends will be spent on zillions of projects around the house!
It's true, we bought a house! As these things go, it's kind of a combination of things we were looking for. Not everything, but a good compromise. Most of the house is in great shape, but there's plenty of room for improvement and projects we plan to tackle.
The actual house-buying process was relatively short for us (unless you count looking...we looked forever). We looked at this house several times, and actually bid on it twice. The first time, we were only up against one other bidder but ultimately got out-bid by them. That deal started to fall apart, so the sellers came back to us to see if we were interested in reengaging.
At that point, we'd just finished bidding on a beautiful foreclosed house. As an aside, if you want to test your stress levels, try an online bid of a foreclosed house from a Starbucks on three-way call with your realtor and husband. Not. Stressful. At all. Ultimately we didn't get that house, so when the sellers called, we were definitely still interested.
The seller and realtor were nice enough to disclose the issues already found in the previous inspection. This allowed us to negotiate a price that everyone was comfortable with, and meant we didn't get tripped up by any surprises along the way. The entire process took from late March until today, a little over 30 days to close, and most of it was a waiting game on the mortgage company and the many paperwork steps to the process.
A huge shoutout to our amazing realtor Kira Syvertsen at Coldwell Banker. She's been looking at homes for us for literally months (and working on getting us to NJ for about 4 years!). If you're looking for a realtor in the Maplewood, Morristown, Rockaway, Morris Plains (and nearby) area, she's your girl. Check her out at Revived Residences.
And now that we own the house? Well we're probably already tackling projects like testing paint colors, taking off original door knobs to refinish and determining what else we need to do before we move in. Tomorrow, we have a paint crew arriving, along with a contractor to help us fix the very creaky stairs before we have the floors finished. We're wasting no time getting started!
Follow along on our Instagram and keep track of things with the hashtag #mapleWOODcolonial