[outfit_details]

If you guys have been following along for the past few months then you know, Matt and I have been searching endlessly for our first home; and if you’ve missed all the home updates you can catch up with this post and this post. Together, Matt and I began our search for our first home back in May, and…with two VERY different visions of what we wanted in a home, our search differently had some highs and lows but it was all worth it in the end. All and all, today we are THRILLED to share the news that we’ve officially closed on our first home, which means I can finally share all the details with you! We are so thankful for this experience and frankly how smoothly our process went, compared to other horror stories we have heard. So on that note, today we are going to share our home buying story with you all, along with the launch of our new YouTube series’…OUR HOUSE! 

As soon as Matt and I received the news that we would be moving back to our hometown in Connecticut, we instantly knew we wanted to purchase a home. After living in an apartment for over two years together, we saw purchasing a home as not only a step forward for us personally but also as a financial investment. Paying for an apartment in our area would actually cost more than a monthly mortgage payment, and with the hopes of being here longer than two years, buying a home for us seemed like the smartest option for our lifestyle and financial success. 

With all of that in mind, we started searching for our home as soon as I was finished unpacking from Dallas. Oddly enough, I actually enjoyed the home buying process, from attending open houses to getting to explore new districts of Connecticut, I found it eye-opening and thrilling. Honestly, I wanted us to take on a property that was a full-fledged fixer-upper; which I saw as an opportunity to customize a house to the point of it become our own. But Matt, on the other hand, had different opinions.

Matt was really looking for a turn-key home with the stipulation of having to have a basement, or as he calls it a man cave. While his request was simple, a turn-key home wasn’t something I saw worth investing in. I didn’t see the value in purchasing a home ready to move into, with amenities we really didn’t care for. or need. I mean the process was exactly that a process,  we bickered often, and for a while thought we wouldn’t find a home at all, but sooner than we realized everything just kind of fell into place. So let’s talk about how exactly, we ended up with OUR HOUSE….

On a warm Sunday, way back in May, my Mom and I headed out to pursue the long list of open houses I had compiled. In fact, the night before I had made the official list of homes I thought would be worth seeing, and the first home on our list was my favorite… but completely out of our price range. So with that in mind, my Mom and I strolled ourselves through the house and instantly saw potential. In my mind, I was going to knock down this wall and have a dormer here and there and maybe there. I instantly felt the potential but for the price, knew we wouldn’t be able to accomplish all the work needed to be done for this house. With that in mind, we carried on and saw five more homes that day, some cute some filled with red shagged rug, all and all it was an eventful day. Yet in the end, I felt like I had to wait for Matt to move back before getting into any more homes.

Now, let’s fast forward to July where Matt and I were looking at twelve homes a day. After striking out, open house after open house, we quickly became frustrated and I knew, we had to go back to that first house. Now by this time the price had dropped but it was still too high for the work we needed to put into it. So we got ourselves a fabulous realtor, Jennifer, we found a mortgage company to get prequalified and we made an offer…that we felt was fair, after budgeting renovation costs. We quickly got a counter offer completely out of our price range and had to walk away, again. 

But I could tell Matt wasn’t going to walk away from this house that easily, I mean there was a gorgeous fireplace in his basement that was going to pull his whole man cave together. Sooooo we waited and waited and almost a month and a half later we made another offer. We went up to the top of our budget for this specific home and gracefully, thanks to our beautiful realtor, we were able to put together a deal. 

And now we have a HOUSE! OUR HOUSE, and our first house at that! We are going to share more details about our home buying journey, along with the renovation we have in store,  in our new YouTube series, OUR HOUSE. Each Saturday starting NEXT Saturday, Nov 10th you’ll get a house themed video/vlog or update as we bring you along for each step in our journey, make sure to subscribe here! 

I honestly can’t believe we are publishing this post, so surreal, but with that being said make sure to head over to YouTube to subscribe and get ready for the launch of OUR HOUSE next week. Overall Matt and I are so grateful for each of you following along and we are so thrilled to bring you along for this experience! 

Shop this post: