We Bought a Zoo!

We Bought a Zoo!

Alright, It’s not a zoo, per se (despite my ideas to fill it with chickens, mini cows, fainting goats, and our dog Chloe) We did, however, buy a home in Rochester, MN.  Perhaps it was my recent career switch to real estate or deciding we really like it here (though it may have been just being ready for our own place and not wanting to pay more for rent than for a mortgage) that made us decide to take the plunge of homeownership.

For the full effect I need to back up: We fell in love with a home by it’s pictures – to the point of wanting to put an offer in without even seeing it.  It was a fairy tale castle in my eyes.  We finally got pre-approved (another debacle in and of itself) after an outrageous number of hours comparing and sitting in meetings.  We have all of our personal information ingrained in our brains now from being asked by each lender.  Finally we found someone who wasn’t just trying to sell us something and agreed to go through the process. We then looked at the home and put an offer in while driving to Wisconsin (you have to love technology for this). We counter offered all weekend and became so frustrated we dropped the whole thing.  Monday our realtor took us out to look at 7 houses.  We wanted something older with character and the ability to do some updates and still turn it around for a bit more when we were ready to move (more than just “making it our own”)  A few of these homes were so bad we could hardly enter.  My first choice turned out to be an overpriced bachelor pad with no yard and a pink kitchen.  I have no problem admitting I’m wrong (in this instance). One house we looked at our realtor went into the basement and came running upstairs yelling “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”  She then made Chris go down – I don’t even think we finished looking at the rest of the home.

I couldn’t get too discouraged as Chris had so much faith in “his pick” (the last house on our list).  With an awkward layout and not very appealing pictures I was not looking forward to his pick.  As a wife, at times, you have to just concede to looking at something even if you know you won’t allow it in the end.  Chris’ excitement as we got near the end of our list grew as the houses we saw seemed to get worse.  Eventually, we came to what will be known as “two house house.” The awkward layout I mentioned caused this house to be in a “U” shape with weird additions.  I had no idea what I would do with the front yard (we can’t even agree on what the front yard is).

The reason for the name “two-house-house”

The front walkway

Turns out we fell in love with its 1922 charm, original wood floors, outdated kitchen and bathroom, fenced yard (for our zoo), not one but 2 fireplaces, and the unique details.  The pictures don’t do it justice!  We made an offer right away on April 8th.  (It had only been on the market 3 days and was a steal for the area and space – we knew we had to jump in).  Everything about trying to purchase this house has gone so smoothly we knew it was meant to be in the end.  We have been trying to contain our excitement until we heard the final word from the inspection, appraisal,  loan officer, underwriter, painter, etc.

We had our inspection April 11th and because it had recently been inspected we saved money.  The owners agreed to fix the minor things it needed.  Our final inspection of the updates was the 15th and in this case I’m going to believe no news is good news.  We close on the 28th of this month (8 days).  We could not be more thankful for how everything has turned out so far.  We’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who have offered to help us move and by their excitement for us to stay.  We have truly started our life together in a great place.

We’ll write more after closing:  get ready for our home improvement posts to come!

1 Comment
  • Marcia
    Posted at 11:12h, 21 May

    COOL – congrats on joining the world of homeowners!!! Will look forward to seeing it in person – how exciting!!! 🙂