Tale of a First-Time Homebuyer

Just a few short months ago, buying a house wasn’t even on my radar. No way I would even think about committing to spend that much money. No chance. Nope. "And not you or anyone else is going to make me change my mind!" I said to the world.

But then I got married. And well, my whole perspective changed. I was suddenly starting a life together with someone else. And a house soon became part of our not-so-distant future plans.

It’s not like it was a big surprise. I mean, of course I wanted to be a homeowner, I just didn’t want to have to spend money to become one. Hahah. I guess that's why they often say that a house will be one of the biggest investments one will ever make. And that just makes things a little more scary, I suppose—at least for us. Can’t someone just give us a house or something? I thought. But I’m pretty sure that that is not going to happen (though if you’re out there, it’s not too late!).

So, we decided we wanted to start the process of buying a house. Ummm, now what? How much can I spend? I don’t know. How much should I put down? I don’t know. Do I qualify for the first time home buyer’s tax credit? I sure hope so. What neighborhoods should I look in? I have no idea. Who do I talk to so I can get some answers? No clue. What is the best website to check out listings? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

You get the idea. Despite my work in the real estate industry, I really don’t know the first thing about home buying. I don’t even know where to start.

So our home buying adventure started out innocently enough, simply driving through some neighborhoods on the way to Costco on a typically uneventful Sunday. While ridiculous deals of 48 frozen waffles for $6 and 20lbs of individually-wrapped frozen chicken breasts for $20 danced through my head, I was looking at $300,000 houses out my driver-side window.

While the whole experience seemed exciting and fun to my wife, who pointed out homes she liked along the way and read descriptions from the paper as we passed, I knew there was much to plan and so many unanswered questions that we had to get settled before we could ever talk about whether this home had granite countertops or hardwood floors. It was not so fun for me. I wasn’t seeing houses, I was seeing dollar signs.

 “We need to talk to someone and figure out how much we can spend,” I finally said. I knew at least (and she agreed) that that was our first step. And as we left our prospective neighborhood and headed towards heaven, I mean Costco, we sat in introspective silence.

Little did I know, we had set into motion a chain of events that would lead to us buying our first home in just three short weeks.

---

To be continued...