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Nope, not any more. No I have a whole new set of concerns like mortgage payments, mowing the grass, repainting various items, etc. I must say though that I am excited about the opportunity to do that kind of work on our home. Now I can actually run speaker wire in the walls like I have always dreamed of doing. I can knock out walls and replace toilets. I can scrap that old washer and dryer for a new one. I can finally do all the things I couldn't do in an apartment and I can't wait.

How did we find the house you ask? Good question. Our apartment lease was coming due in a couple of months. Rather than get another apartment Nikki and I decided to venture out looking for a house. Unfortunately we were venturing into the Baltimore / Washington DC housing market which is nuts. Prices out here are pretty ridiculous, especially compared to Illinois or Indiana. That being said our first stop was at a mortgage lender to get pre-approved for a loan (its a must in this market).

It was a requirement of ours that we get a single family home. That is a-typical for first time buyers in Maryland, the land of row-houses. If we couldn't find a single family home we liked, then it was back to apartment hunting. I told the mortgage guy that fact. He said you can spend up to $X on your home. I said I was only comfortable spending $X - 100k. He then chuckled and said I would never single family home for that, and that it would even be difficult to find a row house for that price. Strike 1.

Next stop was at the realtors office. We told him what we wanted in a house. Close to work, right price range, a/c, yada yada. That was all well and good until I mentioned that I required a garage. The realtor then chuckled and said we wouldn't find a house for that price with a garage. A quick side note, garages are no where near as prevalent in Maryland as they are in Illinois. About 80% of the homes in our price range had no garage. The other 20% had so called garages that I wouldn't even want to store my lawnmower in (as soon as I get one). Strike 2.

After looking about about 20 homes Nikki found one we really liked. It was a bit pricey for us but met all of our requirements. The house was pretty near perfect, except the high price tag. Never mind the price, we decided to go for it. We submitted our contract and waited for the results. Mysteriously the seller was unable to accept our contract for 3 days due to work or some other lame excuse. By the time they did, it was the weekend and multiple other offers had been put in. I should mention that homes in this market are usually on the market for less than 1 week before being sold.

Even though I am sure we were the highest bid and had our pre-approval letter for the required loan amount, I wanted a home inspection. The seller ended up going with another buyer, probably one who was not a first time buyer thus seemed less risky. Strike 3.

Both Nikki and I were pretty upset. We kept on looking at homes but nothing was jumping out at us. Just when I was about ready to call it quits for a couple of weeks Nikki found some homes for sale in an area we had not previously looked at. The homes looked good on paper so we had the realtor set up some walk-through.

Our new home was one of those houses. We instantly found the exterior to be very charming. Inside was a pleasant surprise. The previous owner had been a contractor who had done a lot of work to the house. Unlike many of the previous homes we looked at where the owner had done the remolding themselves, this one was actually remolded well. Finally we found a previous home owner with a good head on their shoulders. Their sense of style was pretty close to ours. As soon as we walked in we could see ourselves living in that house.

The house is only a 2 bedroom (currently) which is smaller than we were hoping. Still, it has an unfinished basement with room for a home theater, work shop, laundry room, 2nd bathroom, and 3rd bedroom (aka home office). There is also a 2 car garage and unfinished attic for extra storage. The best part was the price. I was only slightly more than what I had wanted to spend, which is still significantly less than what the mortgage guy though we would need to get a single family home we liked. This house was home run.

We presented our contract, still with the home inspection clause. This time the home inspection did not even phase the seller, perhaps because they knew their house was in good shape. Fast forward through a home inspection, bank appraisal, termite inspection, and insurances appraisal and the house is ours. Both Nikki and I are relieved to have finally found a house we can call home and very excited to start making that place uniquely ours.

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