What a difference a week makes!!

Wow.
Its been a craaaaazy week!

It all started last Monday....
Everything was completely normal, same old-same old.
And then....
I checked my email and our lives kind of changed..


Back story-
Since we moved to Nashville 2 1/2 yrs ago, we've rented a house. No big deal.
Its a great house, just not ours..
We always had plans to buy a house someday but the time was never right.
Interest rates were too high or we weren't sure which area we wanted to live..
So over the past 2 years or so, we've kind of figured out the city and its surroundings. We know where we like and don't like and more importantly, where we can afford and cannot afford! ;)

Life is good here in Nashville. Its a beautiful, little city. Sooo incredibly green it
could possibly blind you. The people are great. The food is... eh, it could be better. We do miss our super-yummy Tex-Mex! Mmmm, Uncle Julio's...

Our plan has remained to continue saving for the adoption and to wait on buying a house until we have the baby... Why exactly we had that plan, I don't really know. It just always made sense to us.
Or so we thought.
Turns out, interest rates are freaking amazing right now!

Which leads me to last Monday's email...
We've been on a local real estate agent's mailing list for the past 2 yrs after meeting her at a random open house and telling her how much we looove a particular neighborhood east of Nashville. Its about 20 minutes east of downtown. All late-1920's Bungalows with Dutch and Colonial Revival influence, built by DuPont back in the day for managers and workers of the country's first gunpowder plant..
There's a lot of random history that I won't bore you with but it basically has a sort of quirky, Mayberry-ish feel and we love it!

Anywho, usually I check the emails and the houses are okay but last week I saw this little cutie!



Seriously, what an adorable little house right?

We fell in love on Monday, saw it on Wednesday, and put in an offer on Thursday.
It was so perfect!
It even has a gorgeous little Japanese garden in the back! I mean, who has a Japanese garden in Nashville, Tennessee?? Wow.

But, long story short, our offer went in the same time as another one.... And even though we offered the same amount.... to the penny, the other guy offered cash. Boo. And so the seller accepted their offer.

It was really disappointing. Our first experience with that sort of thing...
It totally sucked to lose!!
But in retrospect, the house was pretty small... most likely too small for a family, better for a couple or a single.
So it all worked out for the best.


And it did make us realize that our time to buy a home could be now.

Between interest rates being so low, this being a buyer's market, and Obama's first time home-buyer's thing... (which, by the way, is up to $8000 not a straight $8000.. Its basically a tax credit of 10% of the purchase price of your house. So you'd have to buy an $800,000 house to get the full credit.. But hey, every little bit helps, right?)

So we're still looking in that cute neighborhood. Its next to the lake. Tons and tons of trees and birds. You can hear the frogs and crickets. And see the stars at night....
Ah... so nice :)


Our agent took us to see 3 other houses today.

One was a total bust... no central AC. Yikes! And it was a major project, top to bottom. We're okay with a few projects, just not a house that is a project.
The second one was nice. It needs some TLC on the front porch and exterior paint, etc. Nothing major. But it will also need a bit of help in the kitchen. That's usually a pretty large and expensive undertaking..
Its also on a busier, main street. Trust me, though, in this neighborhood, there isn't really any traffic but the only "traffic" is on that street.

The last house was the best!
Super cute. They kept the old character and personality of the house but updated the kitchen and bathrooms. Its on a beautiful street that is insanely quiet. There are huge windows everywhere and trees out every one of them!
The only down side is out the back door.
Its just old, 1928 concrete stairs to the back yard.
I guess that's no too big of a project. And not really an emergency thing either. It has a tiny fenced area on one side of the house that would suffice temporarily for the dogs to play and potty. Eventually we would need to put up a real fence though.
And one other random thing is that the owners (for some reason) replaced all of the old, heavy, awesome doors with new, hollow, cheesy ones. Boo.
Our agent is checking to see if they (hopefully) kept them!

We'll see!!! :) No big rush or anything.

It does feel really great to be making a home for our family.
That somehow makes this all feel more "right" and real. We want to have a home to bring our child home to...
Plus if we can get a mortgage for less than we pay right now in rent, then why not??
Its crazy for us to keep throwing $$ toward someone else's mortgage!!

Although, I'm not going to get as attached yet to this property because the last one was completely heart-wrenching to lose. That sounds stupid, I know.
But I guess I could just imagine (really clearly) our life there... the 3 of us.
And it was nice.

We'll keep you posted!! :) :) :) :)