We're Back!

Well, Mamma, Junior, and I have returned from house hunting in AR. If you want to see the house, click HERE. Click on the picture of the home for more pictures.

We began our house hunting trip by looking at a couple of "starter" homes. I call them starter homes not because they are truly starter homes. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I think of starter homes, I think of a semi-run down, one bedroom house with several other noticeable problems. However, I'll call these starter homes because, in context, they were smaller and needed some work. Now, smaller is of course relative as well. These houses ranged from about 1500+ sq. ft. Not a bad size at all.

Anyway, we began by looking at those homes and saw two that we would have strongly considered until....our realtor showed us the one above and we were blown away. It is EXACTLY what we were looking for. It's a little bit bigger (1973 sq. feet), new (5 years old but the previous residents have no kids and the house is VERY "lightly lived in"), and in a good neighborhood.

We continued looking at houses for the rest of the day but didn't see anything else that really compared with this one. So we decided to make an offer. The next day we brought up our respective families, got their input on the house, and made the offer. First, Mamma and I are very thankful that we had the input of our families. From a real estate standpoint, my family gave some invaluable input on the house and the home purchasing/negotiating process. Mamma and I then had a brief conversation about how much we wanted to offer and what conditions we wanted on the contract.

We made an offer that took into account the advice we received from our families and also one that took into account our own views and goals. Less than 2 hrs after making the offer, our realtor (I'm not capitalizing that out of principle) called us back to let us know that our offer had been verbally accepted.

Anyway, we couldn't be happier.

Additionally, Junior got to meet the family. Everyone approved of him as well, not that that is a big surprise.

If you're reading this, and you're a friend of ours who lives in LR, we're sorry that we didn't call you. This trip, like so many others that have preceeded it, was VERY busy and didn't allow much time for socializing. If it makes you feel any better, we didn't call ANYONE. Sorry, but we promise to be better friends when we move down there permanantly.

At any rate, it was a very painless and straight forward process thanks to the help of our families and realtor. We close on April 30th. We move in late May/early July and are excited about seeing all of you more often.

Best,

Pappa