Busy times here in the Walker household. Let's quickly recap the events of the past few days.

Tuesday, 01MAR05 - Lisa and I met up a mortgage broker to go over the many different financing options available to us. The broker not only talked to us about financing a home, but also the process of buying a home, what to look for and avoid and what costs are involved that we might have not considered yet (which we hadn't, because we didn't know about them). After spending almost two hours with Glenn, we left his office feeling well educated in the area of home financing and more comfortable with the idea of purchusing a home. If you need a mortage broker, I'd recommend Glenn in a heartbeat.

Wednesday, 02MAR05 - Lisa and I met up our realtor, Holly Hunter, for the first time. Since we had already met with Glenn, we skipped the initial meeting and went straight to looking at three houses. The first one had quite a bit of character and peaked our interest to a degree while the other two were ruled out for various reasons. We discussed the possibility of the first house and we were considering possibly pursuing it further.

Thursday, 03MAR05 - After work, Lisa and I swung by the location of the first house to see it and the nieghborhood in daylight. As we pull up I notice that the sign now has a portion that says "Under Contract" on it. The house had been on the market for almost a half a year, and the day after wee see it it goes under contract. Needless to say, we were a bit bummed by that.

Friday, 04MAR05 - Our realtor e-mailed us a hundred or so listings that were within our price range and areas of interest. So we sifted through them and picked out a handful of options and notified our realtor. We planned to meet on Sunday to go view possibilities for several hours. Before we could meet on Sunday, 3 of the houses went under contract or were sold.

Sunday, 06MAR05 - Lisa and I met up with Holly, our realtor, at 3:30 in the afternoon. We went to a neighborhood I know pretty well to see four different houses. The first one was a fixer-upper in the most literal sense. Every room would need either paint or carpet, along with other work just to be tolerable. It also didn't have a finished basement, which was a bonus we were hoping for. House number two proved to be much nicer and had a finished basement. House three was okay, but it had some things that didn't make Lisa and I want to buy it. House four was nice enough, but it's location (on a busy street corner) as well as a few structural things prevented us from wanting it. We left that subdivision to see a house in St. Peters. Before we set foot in the house we had ruled it out(rough neighborhood, ugly house, structural issues, etc). The interior only confirmed our initial supsicions, so we left in a hurry.

Lisa and I had talked on our way to this last house and had pretty much decided we liked house #2 the best. We realized that houses in that neighborhood we selling quickly, and this house had just gone on the market that day. In fact, we were the third people to see it. So we went back to the house to see it again and go through it a bit more detailed. After consulting with our realtor, we decided to offer a contract on the house. So we went back to the realtor's office and talked our way through the paperwork, finishing up the process two hours later.

Monday, 07MAR05 - Lisa and I were supposed to hear back from the seller by 6pm, so all day long I was checking my phone for message from Holly. At 3:30pm, she sent us a message stating that the seller had counter-offered, accepting our conditions and slightly lowering his price. Basically, he came down to below half the difference of what we had asked for, and Lisa and I thought that this was very acceptable. So we had Holly fax us the changes to sign off on, and we did so and faxed them back an hour later.

Since we have already been pre-approved for a loan amount that is greater than the cost of the house we are buying, financing should not pose any problems. It's just a matter of filling out all of the paperwork and jumping through the hoops. So, assuming that the building inspections go well this Saturday and nothing jumps out to cause any trouble, we should close on the house on April 18th.

That's right, Lisa and I will be homeowners by the middle of next month! We went from talking about maybe getting a home, to looking at homes online, to meeting with a mortagage broker, to meeting with a realtor, to physically looking at homes to offering a contract and signing the counter offer in less than a week! We physically looked at 8 homes total, taking a total of 5 hours over 2 days in viewing time to do it. Talk about things happening fast! We had prayed that God would open and close doors as He saw fit, and we saw several doors close before we even had a chance to look through them. Now, we are in the process of closing on a house that will make a great home and has plenty of room for us. God is so good!

Large House Photos & Smaller House Photos