HOUSE: Updates!

Nick and I have had a very special experience with finding a house for us to live in. We knew that we didn't want to buy new construction, but rather find a foreclosed home in good shape for a much lower price. Our three-year plan is to cosmetically fix up a house, and sell it in three years for much more than we paid for it. Well....this process took much longer then we thought. We made 7 offers on houses, and got out-bid on all of them. This is something we expected, because finding a foreclosed house for the price we wanted to pay puts us in competition with investors, who are often willing to jack up an offer on a house. Well patience paid off for us, because the eighth house we made an offer on we got! Thank God for our realtor Sandra, because she earned every penny. We must have walked through 25-30 different houses, not counting the dozens of other we just drove by and deemed unacceptable.

The house we have under contract is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with 2,200 square feet. It's in a cute little neighborhood with a pool and great trees :) The value of the house is 50% more than what we paid for it, so we're so excited about this investment opportunity, and well as a place to live! The house needs almost no fixing-up...just some new carpet in places and a new refrigerator (can we say new stainless steel? My favorite!)

We are definitely very excited about the house...so depending on how well the appraisal goes, we should be closing on it from the middle to the end of August- talk about cutting it close! I was beginning to think that we would come back from the honeymoon to have nowhere to live....but my parents house. Not happening!

The financial burden of a mortgage is now apon us, and I couldn't be more excited :)