Cassie and I started house hunting last week, made an offer yesterday afternoon, and came to an agreement with the seller earlier this evening. We are quite excited about the prospect of being “homeowners.”
The house is in the South Oaks subdivision, which is about half a mile south of where we live now. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and is a little over 1900 square feet. It sits on a 0.96 acre lot on a cul-de-sac, at the edge of the subdivision. The fenced-in backyard is huge, and the lot extends well into the wooded area behind the fence.
There are currently over 1,500 properties on the market in the Oxford area. However, due to our requirements and budget, our options were relatively limited. Firstly, we wanted the house to be in the Oxford School District. We want the kids to go to Oxford city schools (more on that later).
Secondly, we wanted a relatively large yard with some trees. When we began our search we defined “relatively large” as half an acre. We did much better with the yard that I could have ever expected.
On the other hand, we were hoping to get a four bedroom house, or at least three bedrooms and a bonus room. There were a few of those in our price range, but there was always something else “wrong” with them. Three bedrooms is a little on the tight side for us, but it’ll be fine. We plan on moving up in house in five or six years anyway.
The house was originally put on the market in August. The seller dropped the price 7.2% in October, and the price we agreed on was 5.3% below the reduced price. The price we agreed on was a lot less than we initially planned on spending. As our house hunt moved along we decided we’d prefer to spend less on a house and have a little more surplus income. I’m very happy with that decision, and I’m not sure I would have been so relaxed through the whole process if we hadn’t come to that conclusion early on.
Our contract states that we’ll close on or before April 15th, and we plan on being moved in by the end of April. There’s a lot to do between now and then. The first step is a home inspection. I’m sure you’ll be hearing much more about the house.
Congrats! Sounds like a nice place. I’m looking forward to hearing more about it. I tried looking it up on Zillow, but I couldn’t find it.
Thanks, I’ll send you a link via email.
Aww, man. It’s even further from work. You’re commute’s going to jump up to at *least* three minutes now! It looks like a really nice place, though. Crown molding is schmancy. :)
By the way, if you need to earn some money on the side, you should totally buy a wide angle lens and call up that real estate agency and tell them you can take way better house pictures for them.
I had previously given some pretty serious thought to trying to do real estate photography. Seeing all these horrible pictures has stirred up those thoughts again. I’m not sure agents would be willing to make it worth my while on the average house though. I guess I’d have to specialize in high dollar homes. :)
Congratulations to the both of you!! Post pictures VERY SOON!!!
Thanks Missy. The home inspection is on Wednesday, and I plan on taking my camera with me. I’ll try to post some pictures Wednesday night.