Transcription
[Music] the kind of most agonizing part for me. Yeah, the first open concept nitty-gritty, the details that went into it. Today, I am sharing our journey to buying our first home. I wanted to start this video off with just a few disclaimers because, first and foremost, I am not a real estate expert. This is simply a video from me. I'm just a girl, and I really just want to chat through our process. This is a video I would have liked to have seen before I had bought a house, just kind of the nitty-gritty, the details that went into it. And of course, this is less about owning a home because we have not been homeowners for very long at this point. And it's more just about our process of buying our home and tips, things I learned throughout the process.
I also don't want to seem out of touch in this video because this is a big deal for us. This was a huge step. This was something that we have been praying about. This is something we have been saving for and working towards for a very long time. And it's something that we don't take lightly. We feel incredibly blessed to be able to do this at this point in our life. We feel incredibly blessed to even have found our home, to have our offer selected. Every single part of the process, we've just been immensely grateful for, and it's something that we take super seriously. And that's why this whole process, we wanted to feel so much peace about the house that we bought because we want to be good stewards of the money that we have. I'm going to walk you through the process as this video goes. You can skip to a particular timestamp, and then I'll have a little Q&A at the end if you guys want to watch that.
But our first step was really deciding, is this a time that we want to buy a house? And this has been the question for a long time. My husband and I have been married for the past five years, and it's something that we've been saving for, even before we got married, working towards. And of course, over the last five years, the market has been in a lot of different places. When we initially kind of found ourselves interested in buying a house, that was in 2020, and that was when interest rates were really low. From the outside perspective, that was a great time to buy a house. People who bought a house then, they have really low interest rates. But for us as first-time homebuyers, we just found being in a very competitive market was actually way more intimidating. I know during that phase, a lot of people were trying to do everything and anything they could to make their offer as great as possible. Things like waving inspections, covering crazy appraisal gaps, buying cash, all these things that we just knew we didn't want to do. So ultimately, we decided to wait. And through waiting, we have just realized that it was going to be the right time to buy when it was the right time to buy for us. Ultimately, this was a house that we weren't seeing ourselves just trying to make money off of in the short term. We hopefully and are praying to be able to stay in this house for a very long time. And I think if that's how you're going into this with buying a house, it's going to be the right time to buy when it's the right time for you, when you feel most comfortable. And I'll talk a little bit about our experience renting and why I don't regret renting later on if that's something you're interested in.
But in 2025, this was the time that we really wanted to be serious about trying to buy a house. Our first step in this process was getting pre-approved by a bank. And this involved just going to different lenders and really shopping around. Interest rates are a huge part of this, and I now understand why interest rates matter so much because they really do change things quite a bit. I think it's really important to just look at a bunch of different lenders if that's the route that you're going trying to get a mortgage. Being pre-approved, we found was really helpful, especially if you're looking in more competitive markets because while for us the market varied depending on the cities that we're looking at, I'll share more about our actual search process, but in some neighborhoods, some cities, it was very competitive, in others, it was actually really slow. We still decided it was a good idea to get pre-approved, and then we also were fully underwritten. And I think those two things were really helpful for us to just have confidence, especially when putting in offers.
Next is figuring out your budget. I'm putting this after because for us, it was really important to have that number before any input from a bank. You want the budget that you feel comfortable with to be set in stone. I can tell you firsthand, it is really easy when you get caught up, especially in these more competitive markets, to just push and push and push. And for some people, it's worth it. That totally makes sense. Do you still have a lot of priorities outside of buying your house? Like, those are things to just have in mind and really write it down, commit to it. I'm really thankful that we were on the same page because people can try to sway you, and you just want to know with whoever you're buying a house with. If it's just yourself, that's the number that you want to stick with. That is your budget. It also just makes looking at houses a lot easier.
Our next step was finding our real estate agent. And this, I can just say, was the biggest factor for us in having just a smooth experience buying a house. Our realtor was incredible. And I know that's not the story from everyone. A lot of people have bad experiences with realtors. And so I just think it's so important to really love who you're working with, to know that they have your back because ultimately, you do have conflicting interests sometimes. And so to be working with someone who you can trust, who understands what you're looking for in a home, who communicates well. Those things are so important. And I will just say firsthand, we did not really actively search, get referrals. We just went with someone from a Zillow listing that we just happened to go to a house, ended up working with them, and then that realtor ended up going on maternity leave, and we just randomly got paired with our realtor that we ended up just being with for the long term, and he was incredible. If you're looking in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, feel free to DM me on Instagram if you're looking for a realtor. I would definitely love to send his information to you guys. You will be communicating with this person quite a bit. At least for us, we were communicating with our realtor all the time. We were all over the place within our search, looking at many different houses in many like different cities, and he just never once made us feel like a burden. He communicated so well and also shared the same faith as us, which was not like a factor that had to be there, but for us, it was just nice to know there were times when he would say, "You know, I know God has the right one in mind. It's going to work out when it's meant to be." And just having that sort of encouragement was really, really helpful. We used so many of his referrals for our inspection and just all the other things that came with buying a house. And I am so thankful that we had a great realtor experience.
And now we get to actually searching for our house. This was the kind of most agonizing part for me personally. I think the thing that helped us just nail everything down was having our non-negotiables. It's beautiful. The would have to be. This list actually came about from looking at a lot of houses. It's we really narrowed down, these are the things that are most important to us. And for us, those were things that we couldn't change within the house. One being location. We ended up searching in a lot of different cities, which I found to be very helpful to figure out, this is exactly where we want to be. Helps narrow down your search. You're not driving from like house to house to house. And ultimately, that's not something you can change. You can change a lot within your house cosmetically. It was really easy to walk into a house and just think, "This house is gorgeous inside. This kitchen's exactly what I want. I love these floors." But you just have to think, even if it's something that you have to save for in the long run, not changes that you have to make immediately, but most of those cosmetic things you can change in the long run, but you can't pick up your house. I mean, I'm sure some people have done this, but most of us can't just pick up our house and move it to a new city. Lighting was also really important. We love natural light, especially with what I do. Natural light is so important. Of course, you can't add in windows, skylights, all that. The way that your house is actually oriented, that can also be hard to change. And then was a backyard space, even a front yard space if we could fence it in, just having some sort of outdoor space because we found when we were looking in more of just the city kind of urban houses, those did not have as much yard space. And that was just something that realistically with our family and our son, we spend so much time outside.
And then we searched and we searched and we searched. Every single weekend pretty much, we were looking at houses. We found that most houses would pop up on Thursdays or Fridays, so most of our weekends we were going to not even open houses. It was mostly tours. And this is when our realtor came into play. He was just incredible at organizing all of our days of tours. I mean, one day I was with him for seven houses, just me. He could completely read my body language when I walked in a house and he'd be like, "Okay, your arms are crossed. This is not it. This is not the house." While it did feel like we were just all over the place looking at a bunch of different houses in different areas, I'm very thankful that we did that because you did get a glimpse of this is how much your money gets you in this city or this city. You really start to narrow down the things that are important to you, what is not important to you. So, I would encourage you to do that. If you already know exactly what your location is, what you're looking for, go for that. But if you feel a little bit all over the place, just kind of run with that, and I think you can narrow it down over time. And I'd also recommend from experience starting before you actually think you need to, especially if you're in a rental. For us, we knew we had somewhat of a deadline with our lease being up in this house. I will say when we started looking around probably January, the market was just more quiet, so things weren't popping up all the time. And you never know if you could maybe get out of your lease. I just think it's helpful even just to get information to start earlier than what you think. And I wish we would have started before. I mean, obviously, it all worked out, but in hindsight, it did seem like we were cutting it just a little bit close because even just having to submit multiple offers, going under contract, those things take time, and you just want to feel comfortable with the time that you have.
I wanted to share some of the houses that we liked. I didn't really share any of these in videos just in case we ended up going with any of these. But for us, we put in offers on two different houses. One though, I don't even know if it counts because we did pull back our offer, which I will share here in a second. One house we liked, we didn't end up putting an offer on this house because we went multiple times, which I would also recommend. This was a house that had been sitting for a while. Had a huge backyard. This was the selling point for us. It was a gorgeous backyard. The inside we really liked. It had so many updates. It had this really pretty den. Ultimately, we decided not to put an offer on this house because it was on a really busy road, and the taxes on this house were really, really high.
Another house, I actually told this story in a whole other video, so I'll kind of share it in short. This was a listing that we knew would be competitive. It had a lot of land, at least for us, it was a lot of land, but still in the suburbs. It wasn't like in the middle of the country or anything. You backed up to cattle. It was a really dreamy house. And we actually put in an offer on this house before even seeing it because it was a coming soon listing. Thankfully, this was not an aggressive offer by any means. I mean, in hindsight, this was not an offer that would have made the sellers pull it off the market before even putting it on the market. I guess technically they said that they weren't going to review offers or anything, which again, thankfully, God was watching out for us because we did end up doing a tour. The house on the inside, again, you can change a lot of things, but this would have been so much money for us to redo. We were not in the place where we wanted to do like a whole gut renovation, but realistically, there were just a lot of things that this house needed, needed some help on.
Which then brings us to our house. I have a whole empty house tour if you guys want to check it out. We love this house. From the minute that we walked in, the minute that we saw the photos, I just knew this, this is, you know, the most, this is the house feeling that I had gotten in any of the ones that we toured. And that brings us to crafting an offer. I really wanted to encourage you in this section because I know a lot of people are probably looking in competitive markets. I just learned that it is not always about the price that you are offering for the house. There are a lot of other elements that, especially if you have a realtor, again, having a great realtor who has your interest at heart isn't, you know, steering you to go in a direction that you don't want to go in. But if you are in a situation where this is a house that maybe they have a deadline for offers, you know, there are going to be multiple that are presented. Some of the things that can kind of help your offer, it can really depend on what the seller is looking for. You can try to get information. A lot of times they're not going to tell you. I don't even know how legal it is to give you information. We weren't really given any information on what was motivating the seller to sell, but a lot of times people are just trying to close as quickly as possible. If you're working with a lender who can get it done, obviously this is an element where if you have a cash offer, that really helps, but I know a lot of us are not in that situation. Being fully underwritten, I think that that's really helpful. Your earnest money, your option period that you have. I think in my mind, I just thought, okay, they're going to go with the offer that is the absolute highest. But there are a lot of these other elements. People are waving inspections. I personally, that was not something that we felt comfortable with. We wanted a very thorough inspection. And at least for us, that was something that was important to know exactly what we were kind of getting ourselves into. And writing a letter. We did write a handwritten personal letter of just honestly what we were excited for about the house, talking about how we saw ourselves living in the house, our family. I know some agents tell their sellers not even to read them. I ultimately have no idea why our offer was selected. We never really got feedback, but our offer was selected. And so I would just encourage you, again, I think this is why working with a realtor that you trust. So many times our realtor told us, "You're not convincing me to buy this house. Like, this is you who is buying this house. It has to be something that you are comfortable with." We were always reminded that we are in the driver's seat. And I think that that's very important to know throughout this process. I think a couple hours after the deadline, that's when we were told that our offer was selected. We were so incredibly excited. And then the next couple of weeks were basically a whirlwind.
But to start, we had our inspection. We ended up going with an inspector that our realtor referred us to. And when I say this was the most thorough inspection I think we could have gotten. We know every single thing about this house. We knew exactly how much we were going to have to invest into this house. I know a lot of times people prefer to hire their own inspector, and that completely makes sense because ultimately, they just have your interest in mind. I don't know. I have heard stories about realtors referring people to inspectors who maybe don't find absolutely everything. But it was clear that we found at least a good chunk of anything that was visible with the house. And with that, he did find some things that we actually decided to go back and ask for just money to be able to repair those things. Some of the bigger ticket items, like our shower pan, needed replaced. We do have quite a few trees in this neighborhood, so some of the plumbing had some leaks. We went back to negotiate. They came back with the money that they were able to offer for the repairs, and then they started a bunch of the plumbing repairs before we actually closed. You will then do your house appraisal too. That was something I didn't realize how important that is, but especially if you're offering a price that the appraisal comes back lower. That's a big factor you might have to go back and negotiate. And then getting your home insurance. This was all stuff that our realtor walked us through. Very, very helpful. And then you have your closing day, which was really exciting. It was a really just surreal day for us. You sign a lot, a lot of papers. I had heard a lot about how closing costs are often like way more than what you expect. You have things like the appraisal fee, your credit report, underwriting, title insurance, inspection, insurance. When I was researching, they say typically these closing costs come out to about three to five percent of whatever your loan is. And then you own a home. And now we are entering all the things that we will learn about home ownership to come. That was our process.
I wanted to highlight the big things that I learned. Number one is your realtor. Your realtor makes a huge difference. It can really make or break if you're working with one. We are so thankful that we did. A lot of times the seller is covering their fee. We did have to pay a portion of this fee. It wasn't a big portion of it, but still something to note. Sometimes you will have to pay for part of it, but I think most cases you don't. Another thing, I don't regret renting. I have gotten that question too because for us, we have learned so much through being renters of apartments and this house that we lived in. We have gotten such a good sense of where we want to be. I have learned so much these last just five years, especially being married, living in different places, and even being in times of my life where I didn't want to have the responsibility of keeping up with the house. There are so many added fees. Even if you're getting a mortgage, just seeing how much is going to interest, your taxes, your insurance, these are things that you're not directly having equity in a home. I know so many people say renting is a waste because you're never going to own anything, but your mortgage isn't all equity in a home. There are a lot of other things that a lot of times you just aren't ready to pay for all that stuff. You don't want to pay for all that stuff. You're not sure where you want to be. We just learned a lot. We've learned a lot about our priorities and what we want. Even being in this house, we have been responsible for quite a few things in this house. It has felt like a good stepping stone to home ownership because we do pretty much pay for everything in this house right now. And also for us, don't put in an offer sight unseen. I know this makes sense for a lot of people, especially if you're in really competitive markets. That is what some people go for, but I just know after this whole process, after seeing so many houses, I was really running off vibes. I would just get vibes in homes. I found most houses ended up being darker than the photos looked. They ended up being smaller than the photos looked. So, I just think it's helpful to see.
And now entering our Q&A. I asked for questions over on Instagram. Did you budget for renovations? So, I've talked about how we want to switch up a few things in our kitchen especially. It definitely depended on the price that we were offering. If we knew we would have to change a lot of things, then we were just going to make sure we offered a price that kind of accounted for that. For our house, we're not doing major renovations. We're not fully like changing the layout, breaking out walls, anything like that. We're just replacing the kitchen floors, hopefully the countertops, the backsplash, and if this ends up being a giant bill that we don't want to do, we'll just keep saving and do it when we feel more comfortable. Did you ever have buyer's remorse along the journey? No. That was something I was a little bit worried about. I had heard of people just regretting because again, it is a very large purchase. It is a huge step to be making. But no, even just being in this house now, we are so ready to be moved in. We've been spending so much time at our house. Aiden's there right now, and we always talk about how sad we are to leave and go back. So we feel really, really great about it. And again, I think that's because this is something that we have been thinking about for a very, very long time. Got a question of when we actually have to pay for everything. So, the only things that we had to pay for before actually closing were we had our option fee for our option period. We had our earnest money. We paid for our inspection after the inspector came out, and then you pay for your down payment, your closing costs, all those things at closing. At least that's how it was for us. I got some questions about neighbors, how to assess about the vibe with the neighbors. This was something that a lot of people actually told me. If you can try to go in the middle of the night to just see what the vibe is, if it's loud, if it's noisy. I did take into account some houses that we saw, we would go in the backyard and there would be really loud dogs to see if the dogs would be brought inside or if they were just outside all day. I did not go door to door and try to meet any neighbors or anything. Thankfully, we have met some of our neighbors now, and they are very, very sweet, very kind people. But I know that's a huge part again with renting. If you don't vibe with your neighbors, you're just renting. It is a huge part if you're owning a home, especially if you're in like a more dense area where your neighbors are really close to you. That's a huge factor to consider. How long did the process take from start to finish? So, like I mentioned, we started looking in January. Wish we would have started a little bit earlier. And then for us, from the time that we submitted our offer to close, it was about a month. That's how long it took for us. I think I'm not sure if that's average or maybe a little bit quicker than average, but for us, it was about a month. What were some of the major red flags you saw in houses? Red flags are hard because red flags for us may be different for you and your family. For us, anything with the foundation is huge to be aware of because we had heard that those were the most costly things. Things with the roof, if the roof was going to need to be replaced soon, the neighborhood, again, things that are just either really, really expensive to change or impossible to change. And then there are things like the HVAC, the water heater, would those need to be replaced soon? Not that those are deal breakers, but they're just good to know if you're buying a house that's at the top end of your price range or the lower end, if it's not that big of a deal. If the neighborhood's really noisy, a busy street, those were things too that we consider to be red flags. And lastly, someone asked if I brought Connor to the open houses or the tours. This I wanted to touch on because I completely understand why people just say it's easier to buy a house before you have kids in this sense because a lot of the tours I would go by myself, Aiden would go by himself, or my lovely mom would just last minute take Connor for us so we could look at houses. I'm sure you could bring your children, and a lot of times you're living in an area that you don't have a babysitter. You don't have family to watch your child, but a lot of the homes that we saw were staged, and he's just a toddler. He likes to run around. He likes to grab things, touch things. And I didn't want to be in a scenario where I was kind of stressed watching him, not wanting him to get into things, and I wasn't focusing on looking at the house and like seeing everything. So, I'm so thankful for my mom because a lot of times, like I mentioned, these houses would pop up on Thursday, Friday, then we'd go see them so quickly. And she was just the best for watching him. And I would say most of the time I would go by myself if that was the scenario we were in because I was just a little bit more picky with the houses and just what we were looking for versus Aiden. He was a little bit more lax about things. I think especially if a house is empty, I think a baby's totally different. And even older kids, I think, are different. But an 18-month-old, I preferred to have someone watching him. And that was everything.
That is everything for our process of buying a home. I hope this wasn't incredibly boring. I hope it was informative, but also still approachable. That was the vibe that I was trying to put out because I watched a lot of these videos, and a lot of them were very informative, very helpful, but very like this, just kind of intimidating. If there's anything else you would like to know, you can DM me on Instagram. I try to respond to a lot of my DMs. If you're going through this process, I'm sending so much love and so many prayers because I know firsthand just how emotional it can all feel. And a lot of people told me, "You have to take the emotions out of it. You can't get attached to a house." And that is so much easier said than done when you're looking. You can always take a break, too. That was something we told us. You know, we do have an end date with this lease, but we can figure out another situation. We never wanted to buy something that just didn't feel right. It didn't have to be perfect, but we didn't want to spend this money that we had really saved and worked for on something that didn't feel at least 70, 80% there. And yeah, we just feel so blessed and so thankful to be in the situation. Again, not something we take lightly. We feel very, very thankful to be in this situation. And again, just really excited to keep sharing home videos and lots of not home-related videos because I know that's been heavy in the content lately. But I will catch you guys in my next video. Bye. [Music]