Let’s just start talking about this post by saying that house hunting is a pain in the butt. By that, you can tell that it hasn’t been a smooth, happy process for us, or at least me. Andrew deals better with stress than I do. Andrew and I have been talking about moving out on our own for as long as we’ve been together practically. We looked around some before and sort of figured out what we thought we could afford and what we’d get with that, so I’d say we were pretty prepared to begin our official house hunt. I guess we started looking at houses seriously in February. It’s been a few months now and boy have there been plenty of ups and downs…
Before searching for real, we thought we were going to get a cute townhouse or something in the Lehi area. That idea changed to maybe in the Sandy/Draper area… Location is a pretty big deal to us and we wanted something that wasn’t too far out there. Well, our idea of a cute, little townhouse changed when we learned about all the free money the government was giving away for first-time home buyers. Andrew actually paid extremely close attention to that part of the Stimulus Package that was going through earlier this year and not much else. He was so excited when they uped the tax credit and then made it free… Lol. (If anyone was around then, Andrew was pretty darn happy with the government because of this and his tax refund. It’s all he could talk about.) Well then, with that and figuring out how much we could realistically afford, we found out that we may be able to purchase a HOUSE! This is a big deal to us (as I’m sure it is with most people), because 1) We don’t do well with sharing walls, as I’ve never had to, and Andrew doesn’t prefer it, and 2) We wanted a fenced backyard for kiddies to run around in.
In the beginning, Andrew and I were pretty dead set with our must-have lists. We both didn’t really want to move too far from where we are now. Andrew HAD to have an unfinished basement and I HAD to have 3 bedrooms. Well, after finding a neighborhood where we could afford a house… Our shared must-have of our ideal location was already out the window. Daybreak is located in South Jordan, which is a bit out there for us, but at least it’s still in the same county. There, we could afford a house, which is still pretty amazing to us, and it’s a very family friendly area with lots of great amenities included in the HOA fees. All that obviously won us over.
With the neighborhood pretty locked down, we started looking through the bazillion builders and their numerous house plans. From there everything became ridiculously complicated and stressful…. When we first started, we had a broader range of what we thought we may afford. (We weren’t sure yet since Andrew wasn’t working full-time yet.) So we picked out our fave house plans and just waiting awhile to see what would happen with Andrew’s job. A little bit of time passed and we figured out that maybe our first choices were a little too expensive for us. Back track!
Round 1: Our number 1 choice...
We went through all the darn papers we’d accumulated from all the different builders and sorted out the ones out of our budget. This left us with a bunch of houses we originally through out because we didn’t like the floor plans or they didn’t fulfill our wish lists. With our list of must-haves once again out the window, we settled on the bare minimum of what we acutally NEEDED. We even considered purchasing a townhome because of the ridiculously low prices, but in the end, we didn’t give up our want for a stand alone house. We also didn’t settle on houses with the master suites on the main level since we didn’t think it was a good idea to have kids wandering down the stairs in the middle of night to our bed… (Jadon still runs into our room down the hall from his in a panic most nights.)
Round 2: Cheaper option
Round 2: Pricier option
We narrowed them down to two options. Both are pretty similar except one is a little larger and a little pricier. Andrew would still have his unfinished basement, but I decided that having a house was worth more to me than having 3 bedrooms. Each house only has 2 bedrooms, which means Jadon gets a room and the baby shares a room with us… Not the ideal situation, but it would have to do in order for us to really get out on our own. Plus, honestly, Jadon still sleeps with us so who’s (or is it whose?) to say the baby really NEEDS her own room.
After deciding on these options, we learned about the lots and the costs for different lots. Argh. More decisions… Do we want a lot that faces a hill or one that faces a street? Do we want a corner lot? This doesn’t seem too bad, except we could only build certain houses on each lot and the lots varied in pricing. We had to decide if a corner lot that faced the street was really worth $10,000 more than one that faced the hill that wasn’t a corner lot. Yes, this doesn’t make much sense and we were really boggled with this decision for awhile, especially since we’re not loaded with money and every little upgrade was important to our budget.
After much thought and discussion, we decided on what we wanted and arranged a time to make a reservation… Of course, to our amazing luck, the lot we wanted was taken the night before the morning we were planning on coming in. Great. Rethink!! FAST! We made our reservation and hoped for the best. You’re wondering if we’re done yet right? I wish…
Next step? Applying for a loan. All the complicatedness with this is best to not be discussed because it’s a pain and I’d rather not go much more into detail. So we’re in the process now of getting approved or declined for a loan. Things seem to be great. Our house is almost in sight, right? Oh, yeah right.
Rewind to our number 1 choice. Remember that one? The one we thought we couldn’t afford… Well, due to the awesome economy, the price on that house dropped pretty dramatically. (Also include the great incentive our builder is offering, which I forgot to mention before… They’re matching the Utah Home Loan Grant thing, which basically means lots more FREE money on top of free money.) With all the free money floating around and the newly reduced price of our number 1 choice, Andrew and I are again reconsidering our options… Of course, all this is dependent on whether or not we’ll get approved for the loan and what that amount will be for.
All this is just a short summary, with little emotional stress added, of our last few months looking at houses. Fun, huh? I’m sure this is a lot more complicated than normal, but I wanted to document it at least since I’ve been wanting to write about it for awhile. Just take this HUGELY long, boring post as a sum up of the other little posts I would’ve written if I’d had the time.
Keep your fingers crossed for us and I’ll let you know how our house hunting adventure concludes…
