Do you feel like we have too many big life changes in the last 4 months to follow along? I'm not going to disagree. It's been a bit of a whirlwind to say the least.
Remember we started looking at houses in June and made several trips to St. Louis during the summer to see what was available. We kept looking and looking.
Until Friday the 13th. Yep. We met our realtor in the morning to look at a few houses that caught our eye and revisit one we were still considering (this is after yet another one of our offers was not chosen earlier that week). We were still looking in 4 different neighborhoods of St. Louis: Shaw (ultimately we decided this may be where we want to be with the next house, but it's a bit slow for us right now), Tower Grove South (my favorite), Tower Grove East (my second favorite), The Grove (Mike's favorite and spoiler: where we ended up buying). Side story. When we first started looking at houses and we were doing lots of walking around different neighborhoods in St. Louis since neither one of us was very familiar. I think on the first trip (maybe second), we walked around the Grove and Mike pretty quickly said it was his first pick...
We looked at 4-5 houses. Decided we would put an offer in on one in Tower Grove South that didn't need immediate updating, but would before we tried to sell in 5-7 years. The backyard was to die for.
Mike had recently discovered a house in The Grove that was currently being renovated. They were doing the process where you purchase the house as a base price and help make decisions during the renovation. Since we were already in the city we did a drive by (note the back of the house was currently not standing). I feel like I need to explain that further. Many houses in St. Louis have been abandoned and now with all the development going on people are rehabbing those houses that are half way fallen down rather than tearing the entire thing down and building a new construction. Which we love!
As we drove away he said, "This neighborhood is so cool now, imagine what it will be in 5 years." Also to note, Mike is currently interning at a development company in The Grove with most of their projects taking place in the area. Yes, this is as we decided 30 minutes earlier to put in an offer in Tower Grove South.
We got home. I emailed the bank for another preapproval letter. Mike checked his email and a house was just posted in The Grove. Back to the city we went. We saw it. We liked it. We put in an offer after it was on the market for a 1/2 day.
Waiting 12 hours for an answer was stressful, especially since we didn't get so many of our other offers.
The whole time we were looking I kept reminding Mike that I lived in my apartment in Lakeview in Chicago for 6 years, which I found after looking at 5 apartments and it wasn't perfect, but I loved it. Mike would listen to me and nod, but after our offer was accepted he would look at the pictures in the listing and say, "It's perfect, Lisa. It's just perfect."
Guys, we closed and it's ours! And whew, that closing process is NO JOKE!
house hunting + closing process = no fun but boy does it feel good to be on this side of it
P.S. I've literally wanted to post this 3 times and once I finally could, it took me forever! Such is life.
We're a mess around here right now. My body shut down last week and I've been fighting off several colds/flus/bugs since. I'm finally starting to feel better and it looks like I passed a portion on to Mike...
Remember we started looking at houses in June and made several trips to St. Louis during the summer to see what was available. We kept looking and looking.
Until Friday the 13th. Yep. We met our realtor in the morning to look at a few houses that caught our eye and revisit one we were still considering (this is after yet another one of our offers was not chosen earlier that week). We were still looking in 4 different neighborhoods of St. Louis: Shaw (ultimately we decided this may be where we want to be with the next house, but it's a bit slow for us right now), Tower Grove South (my favorite), Tower Grove East (my second favorite), The Grove (Mike's favorite and spoiler: where we ended up buying). Side story. When we first started looking at houses and we were doing lots of walking around different neighborhoods in St. Louis since neither one of us was very familiar. I think on the first trip (maybe second), we walked around the Grove and Mike pretty quickly said it was his first pick...
We looked at 4-5 houses. Decided we would put an offer in on one in Tower Grove South that didn't need immediate updating, but would before we tried to sell in 5-7 years. The backyard was to die for.
Mike had recently discovered a house in The Grove that was currently being renovated. They were doing the process where you purchase the house as a base price and help make decisions during the renovation. Since we were already in the city we did a drive by (note the back of the house was currently not standing). I feel like I need to explain that further. Many houses in St. Louis have been abandoned and now with all the development going on people are rehabbing those houses that are half way fallen down rather than tearing the entire thing down and building a new construction. Which we love!
As we drove away he said, "This neighborhood is so cool now, imagine what it will be in 5 years." Also to note, Mike is currently interning at a development company in The Grove with most of their projects taking place in the area. Yes, this is as we decided 30 minutes earlier to put in an offer in Tower Grove South.
We got home. I emailed the bank for another preapproval letter. Mike checked his email and a house was just posted in The Grove. Back to the city we went. We saw it. We liked it. We put in an offer after it was on the market for a 1/2 day.
Waiting 12 hours for an answer was stressful, especially since we didn't get so many of our other offers.
The whole time we were looking I kept reminding Mike that I lived in my apartment in Lakeview in Chicago for 6 years, which I found after looking at 5 apartments and it wasn't perfect, but I loved it. Mike would listen to me and nod, but after our offer was accepted he would look at the pictures in the listing and say, "It's perfect, Lisa. It's just perfect."
Guys, we closed and it's ours! And whew, that closing process is NO JOKE!
house hunting + closing process = no fun but boy does it feel good to be on this side of it
P.S. I've literally wanted to post this 3 times and once I finally could, it took me forever! Such is life.
We're a mess around here right now. My body shut down last week and I've been fighting off several colds/flus/bugs since. I'm finally starting to feel better and it looks like I passed a portion on to Mike...
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