FINALLY!! We can share our big news...

We bought a house!!!

Yes, the Bryson Lovebirds have a new nest.

I can't even believe it as I type it! It has been quite a long, drawn out process, that could have fallen apart at any time, so it felt like bad luck to share too much.

We first started thinking about buying a house back at the end of February, when we saw a cute little house near my Grandpa's house in Downtown Upland. I had never thought it would be possible to buy a house in CA, but all of the sudden it seemed possible! We didn't end up liking that house, but it got the whole process started, as our future realtors were the ones selling the house, which is where we met in person for the first time. It kind of felt meant to be and small world-ish, since they are close friends and colleagues with our current landlord.

That started a long process of looking at houses and generally being disappointed. We looked mostly in our price range in Upland and Ontario, and I think that all except for 1 or 2 were repos. Most of the time they were disgusting, or the house was nice but in a scary neighborhood. We did look at bit in Rancho, but mostly found that for the same price as a 4 bed, 2 bath in Upland, you get a 3 bed 1 bath. We also found that houses in Rancho frequently had multiple offers or got into a bidding war. The good thing was that our agents subscribed us to an email system that would email me every morning with all of the houses in our areas and price range that went on the market that day. It was nice to be able to find houses that looked good online, then go check them out, rather than scheduling appointments blind, or havig to drive around all day.

There were 2 houses we were interested in before this one, and even though we were disappointed at them being sold before we were ready at the time, obviously, everything has worked out!

I had kind of given up a bit when I this house pop up on the listings. I thought it couldn't hurt to go look, but felt skeptical. I thought "All of this money we have been saving for a down payment could be spent on an awesome trip, or just about anything we want if we don't buy a house!" Famous last words, as they say. We both just felt that it was perfect for us when we walked in: even though it was a repo, there were newer laminate wood floors and double paned windows. It appeared that it needed some work, but nothing that we couldn't handle. The neighborhood looks well kept, it is closer to John's work and to church (a little farther from my school, but not too much) and it didn't have any crazy room additions or construction that needed to be torn down. Our agent encouraged us to come to his office that night to make an offer, which was good timing, since there were several offers on it the next day.

They ended up choosing our offer on March 13th, but little did we know that this was barely the beginning of a very long process. We had a 30 day escrow, so our agents advised us on having the house inspected, getting a lender and making sure we had everything we needed. The home inspector did reveal little more wrong with the house than we had hoped, so again our WONDERFUL agents advised that we try to get the bank selling the house to cover some of these costs. It took from March 18th to April 30th for the bank to respond to our request, send our their own companies to get their own estimates on the work, review the estimates, approve the work, schedule the work and actually get the work done. It was a nightmare waiting and waiting, the bank dragging their feet, getting calls from our agents' office every other day saying "We are calling 2 times a day, and they keep putting us off." In the middle of this was the approaching deadline of the 30 day escrow, but luckily our agents got it in writing that the bank was slowing the process, not us, so we did not have to pay any late fees. I finally put it out of my mind, and told myself that since they accepted our offer over the other offers the house is ours, and any extra time we get is more time to save money for repairs!

Also in this month and a half time period was going to a variety of offices and signing one million (I am not exagerating) pieces of paper.

So now, the process is mostly over, but now the next process begins. We have told our landlord that we will be out my May 30th, and our first mortgage payment will be on June 1st. (Can I say how surreal it is to see on a piece of paper that our last mortgage payment will be on JUNE 1st, 2039?!?!?) My mom and the Aunts have already been in the house to measure, plan painting and generally prep me for what is ahead. John's family is coming down in 2 weekends to help us move, and then hopefully we can finish over Memorial Day weekend.

Also, can I say one good thing about this economic "crisis" we are in? In an effort to encourage people like us to buy houses, we get incentive money for being first time home buyers. It will really help with some of the repairs and updates that we need.

Oh yeah, one more good thing about the "crisis" (for us, anyway...): we bought our house for almost exactly HALF as much as our neighbors did for the exact same house 2 years ago. To put it in simple terms: 2 years ago, they paid $10, and right now, we just paid $5.75.

So we feel very blessed, grown up, nervous, scared, excited and overwhelmed all at once. Can't wait to have everyone over! :)