February 3, 2010
Inspection Day
"Brad & Kate,
I have completed your home inspection report and attached it to this email. I am pleased to have found no major or safety concerns with the home. The home itself is very solidly built, and all the major components are in good condition. I believe you have stumbled upon a great investment that with a little TLC will make a wonderful home for you and your children for many years. Good luck with your new home and please feel free to call me with ANY questions."
So yay! Now we just have to wait until March 15th to get the "TLC" part started. The main things we're thinking we'll do is re-carpet the main floor and paint...along with getting the HVAC system cleaned and serviced. Luckily we'll have our tax return by then so we'll have some extra money to work with.
This house is perfect for us, and we can see ourselves being here for a very long time. It is only 2 blocks from one of the best elementary schools in town, in a very quiet and well established neighborhood. We have a huge quarter acre backyard with several trees for us all to run around in as well as a little garden plot and patio. The house has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths and a nice big basement with the laundry room and a separate family room. We're so excited that we found this place and that it was in our price range!
We feel so lucky that all of this has fallen in our laps, I wrote the following blog entry when we first started this whole experience a month ago:
So today is January 4th, 2010. I have lots of things to be grateful for. This past year has brought us many wonderful things: we moved to Twin Falls for Brad's amazing job, we moved into a beautiful apartment, we got pregnant again, Ruth turned 1, and today we were pre-qualified to buy our first home. I am not posting this today because we want to make it a big surprise for everyone when we're like, "Oh yeah, we just bought a HOUSE today." But I'm so thrilled and feel so blessed that I want to record my feelings before I get caught up in the stress of making this all really happen.
We really weren't planning on buying a house any time soon. We did know that once our contract ran up in our apartment that we wanted to move to a house so we could have our own yard for Ruth to play in. We've been kind of anxious about that prospect so we've been looking at rentals on Craig's List and in the paper for weeks, trying to gauge prices and what not. Well this one ad kept popping up for 4 beds/2 baths in the president streets. This last Saturday we thought, "Heck. Let's just call the guy and go see the house." So we did. Well the owner was great and told us that for the amount of rent we were willing to pay we could totally be paying a mortgage, plus the insurance and taxes! We were totally surprised. We thought owning a house would be way more expensive than renting. And in most places it is, but we happen to live in the wonderful town of Twin Falls, Idaho where housing is cheap!
So, the next day was fast Sunday at church so we knew what we were going to fast about. The next day (today) was Monday and we set off to Zion's Bank to get pre-qualified. We were pretty skeptical about how much we would qualify for since we only got a credit card 6 months ago...aka our credit history is BRIEF. But amazingly enough, at about 4 this afternoon, Brad called me from work announcing that we qualified to buy a house!
When Brad told me this news I immediately started screaming at him over the phone. I really couldn't believe it. This meant that our hope of maybe buying a house was DEFINITELY going to happen! We are going to be home-owners! After I stopped screaming I became speechless...home-owners. I'll barely be 24 years old! And then of course I started crying. I feel so blessed. I have a wonderful husband who is doing an amazing job of providing for our little family. I have a beautiful daughter who is curious, and learning words, and loves to read, she's goofy and funny and amazing. I have a newbie on the way who is healthy and kicking and who we'll get to pick a name for in 2 weeks when we get the ultrasound done! We have great insurance, comfortable furniture, great dishes, new clothes and family pictures hanging on our walls. We're blessed to know our Heavenly Father and I feel so grateful for everything we have received.
So yay! Now we just have to wait until March 15th to get the "TLC" part started. The main things we're thinking we'll do is re-carpet the main floor and paint...along with getting the HVAC system cleaned and serviced. Luckily we'll have our tax return by then so we'll have some extra money to work with.
This house is perfect for us, and we can see ourselves being here for a very long time. It is only 2 blocks from one of the best elementary schools in town, in a very quiet and well established neighborhood. We have a huge quarter acre backyard with several trees for us all to run around in as well as a little garden plot and patio. The house has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths and a nice big basement with the laundry room and a separate family room. We're so excited that we found this place and that it was in our price range!
We feel so lucky that all of this has fallen in our laps, I wrote the following blog entry when we first started this whole experience a month ago:
So today is January 4th, 2010. I have lots of things to be grateful for. This past year has brought us many wonderful things: we moved to Twin Falls for Brad's amazing job, we moved into a beautiful apartment, we got pregnant again, Ruth turned 1, and today we were pre-qualified to buy our first home. I am not posting this today because we want to make it a big surprise for everyone when we're like, "Oh yeah, we just bought a HOUSE today." But I'm so thrilled and feel so blessed that I want to record my feelings before I get caught up in the stress of making this all really happen.
We really weren't planning on buying a house any time soon. We did know that once our contract ran up in our apartment that we wanted to move to a house so we could have our own yard for Ruth to play in. We've been kind of anxious about that prospect so we've been looking at rentals on Craig's List and in the paper for weeks, trying to gauge prices and what not. Well this one ad kept popping up for 4 beds/2 baths in the president streets. This last Saturday we thought, "Heck. Let's just call the guy and go see the house." So we did. Well the owner was great and told us that for the amount of rent we were willing to pay we could totally be paying a mortgage, plus the insurance and taxes! We were totally surprised. We thought owning a house would be way more expensive than renting. And in most places it is, but we happen to live in the wonderful town of Twin Falls, Idaho where housing is cheap!
So, the next day was fast Sunday at church so we knew what we were going to fast about. The next day (today) was Monday and we set off to Zion's Bank to get pre-qualified. We were pretty skeptical about how much we would qualify for since we only got a credit card 6 months ago...aka our credit history is BRIEF. But amazingly enough, at about 4 this afternoon, Brad called me from work announcing that we qualified to buy a house!
When Brad told me this news I immediately started screaming at him over the phone. I really couldn't believe it. This meant that our hope of maybe buying a house was DEFINITELY going to happen! We are going to be home-owners! After I stopped screaming I became speechless...home-owners. I'll barely be 24 years old! And then of course I started crying. I feel so blessed. I have a wonderful husband who is doing an amazing job of providing for our little family. I have a beautiful daughter who is curious, and learning words, and loves to read, she's goofy and funny and amazing. I have a newbie on the way who is healthy and kicking and who we'll get to pick a name for in 2 weeks when we get the ultrasound done! We have great insurance, comfortable furniture, great dishes, new clothes and family pictures hanging on our walls. We're blessed to know our Heavenly Father and I feel so grateful for everything we have received.