Our First Home!

This past week has been one of the most exciting, crazy weeks of our marriage. It all started last Monday night. We had a pretty big night planned. One of Alison's best friends, Victoria, was in town and we were going to take her and go with Alison's parents, brother, and Skylee to the Bee's game. I even arranged to get off work a little early so we would have more time to get to the game. It rained really hard that day. We were somewhat doubting whether or not the game would be played. Shortly before I left to come home Alison got a call from our apartment office letting us know they noticed our apartment was flooding. They went in and moved some furniture for us and made sure CC was in another room. They also said someone would go by our apartment soon to take care of the issue. We were pretty frustrated because this has happened a few times before and they installed some pumps a couple of years ago that they said would fix the issue.

When we flooded in the past it got the carpet around the window a little bit wet, but overall it wasn't a big deal. This flood was by far the worst. It soaked the carpet in our office area. We were very fortunate because there was very little damage to any of our stuff. We did end up having to move some of our furniture. By then the baseball game had been delayed and we decided it wasn't worth driving to SLC and sitting in the rain to go to a game tonight. Instead, we all went and got dinner at R&R barbecue. It was delicious.

After dinner, we came back to our apartment and it looked like someone might have come by to look at the flooding, but there was no noticeable change in the conditions of our apartment. We visited with Victoria for a couple of hours thinking someone would stop by. No one did. We called our apartment and they weren't very helpful. We were pretty upset.

By then it was near 11pm and we were feeling so tired of this apartment. We have lived here for 5 years. Our lease is scheduled to be up on July 31. We had previously decided we would sign for another year, possibly two. After the flooding, and especially how we were treated by the office we began to reassess our decision. It didn't take long before we decide we needed to move.

As we considered our options we quickly decided it was time to buy a house. We had actually looked at a few houses on Memorial Day, but we just kept going back and forth on whether or not it was a good idea. After the night we had our mind was made up. Alison texted her mom that night asking about real estate agents and Debbie gave us some contacts.

The next morning Alison reached out to Jane Copier (the most amazing real estate agent) and we got the ball rolling. By the end of Tuesday, we were pre-approved to buy a house and Alison was scouring the internet for houses that would fit our criteria. On Wednesday Jane sent us a pile of houses to go through. Alison went through them first and then she had me go through a bunch as well. There were quite a few we really liked. We were feeling really good about our decision.

The hardest part of buying a house (especially for Alison) was that we had such a busy week that we couldn't go and look at houses until Saturday. It practically killed Alison to have to wait that long.

While we were searching for houses we realized that most of the houses in our price range were townhouses. We weren't wild about buying a townhouse, but there were quite a few options that fit our criteria and we were trying to keep an open mind. We also discovered that we really liked Daybreak. The community there is so unique and really appealing. The downside was that there are high HOA fees, especially for townhouses.

On Wednesday we stumbled across a single-family home in Daybreak that seemed to be everything we were looking for. It was in our price range and had a floor plan we loved. It had some added bonuses we didn't think we would get in our first home. Alison has always said she didn't want a home where the garage is a prominent feature. In this home, the garage is tucked away in the back. I have always said I really like big porches that wrap around the front of the house. This home features a beautiful wrap-around porch. We were pretty sure this was the home we wanted and asked Jane to schedule it for our first stop on Saturday. Alison could hardly wait. She scoured the internet for more information, but it turns out it can be really hard to find.

On Friday we stopped by Daybreak (on our way to take Skylee to a Bee's game) and drove around the Creekside Village neighborhood (the area where they were building the home we liked). We loved the neighborhood, but we couldn't find any homes that were the model we liked. Alison was dying to know more. We really did love the house. Alison was talking to her dad and even called it our house. He gave her a hard time.

Saturday finally arrived and we met Jane at the Ivory Home model home. She was so amazing. She walked us through the entire process and made looking at homes so easy. We walked around and found out they had a home that was the same model like ours that was nearly complete. We were able to look around and instantly loved it. We did go and walk through about 8 other homes in the Daybreak and Herriman areas. There were a few others we liked, but the first one was still our favorite. We circled back and toured the home again to make sure it really was our favorite. As soon as we walked in Alison said, "this is our home."

We took the weekend to think about it and on Monday after work, we sat down with Jane and the builder. Lucky for us both Jane and Larry (the sales agent of the builder) live in Alison's parent's ward. We were able to work with people Alison knew growing up. They both treated us like family and made it a fun process. When we first walked in, Larry was so surprised to see Alison - it was really funny. They are such great people and we feel so blessed to be working with both of them!

Today we reserved lot #263. It will be the site of our future home. In a couple of weeks, we will get to sit down and decide on all the options and before we know it we will have our new home.