We bought a house!

Bryan and I had an eventful month. We celebrated our 7th anniversary and bought a house. We’ve been casually looking for a house for several months but since our contract goes month to month in June we weren’t in a huge rush to buy. We had a few extremely limiting factors to work around: Bryan’s commute (he ruled out driving to work so we only considered homes that were walking distance to a good bus route or train), our price range (obviously) and I had my heart set on Norah attending a dual immersion elementary school. As it turned out there was exactly one neighborhood that met all three criteria. One. You’d think Texas would have dual immersion in every school but it is actually quite rare to find a school with a solid program. The school we zeroed in on was Sanger Elementary – but within these boundaries we were limited to just three streets because the rest of the houses were either way way way too expensive or way way way too small (like 800 square feet).

Our realtor found us a house that he thought was a good value and opportunity but I just couldn’t commit. It was too big of a decision and there was too much pressure to decide quickly. Houses have been flying off the market here in Dallas so there was a good chance it would be gone if we didn’t make an offer within a day or two. We had the paperwork almost done but I was so nervous I felt physically sick about it and changed my mind. Just as our realtor predicted the house was under contract within a week. Our realtor gently tried to tell us to broaden our search and I spent the next month trying to consider a neighborhood near a train station without a dual immersion Elementary but the houses were more money, the commute was actually longer and I hated giving up on Norah attending Sanger Elementary. Bryan and I talked about it extensively and over Conference weekend we really made up our minds that we would just wait for a house to open up in Sanger Elementary’s boundaries and as long as it was livable we’d take it. The next day our realtor told us that the same house that we had looked at before was available again (the buyer backed out) and the sellers reduced the price by 10k. We made an offer and spent a few crazy days dealing with paperwork and finding a lender and it was ours. I’m so glad I had the luxury of making this huge decision slowly. I haven’t had any second thoughts and feel more and more excited every day. We will conveniently be in the same ward and even closer to White Rock Lake and the Arboretum. We close May 14th but the sellers are back leasing till May 24th so we will move and celebrate Norah’s birthday over Memorial Day weekend just like we did last year. This will be the 6th place Bryan and I have lived in – we haven’t lived anywhere longer than 2 years so it is strange to think about planning to live somewhere long term. If you want to see pictures of the house email me.