Dream Home

Life’s short - find your dream home and make it happen!

We made the commitment to purchase a new construction home! After 2 years of searching and looking at hundreds of homes, we finally decided to do the trust fall of committing to a new construction home!

We are honestly surprised by this. We didn’t realistically see ourselves being able to make the leap and go the new construction route. After looking at different builders in the area and the neighborhoods we had mostly written off the idea. We had a difficult time looking at empty lots and half finished neighborhoods and imagining being able to call them home. The pricing of some of the new construction houses we considered seemed outrageous as well. If you are on the verge of commiting to a new construction home, but can’t quite commit hopefully our story can help you in your decision process!

Our Home Journey

First off, we have owned our current home for 6 years. We moved here in August of 2015, 3 months before our youngest daughter was born. We had moved here from a similar sized, but older home with a different layout. After fixing up our prior home, we decided that it still wasn’t exactly what we had in mind as the perfect home. We wanted something newer, with a more open floorplan and wanted a neighborhood with younger people (our neighbors were great, but many were still the original owners from 1990 and we wanted people closer to our age and plenty of neighborhood kids for our future children to play with). We purchased that home in 2012 for $265,000 and later sold it for $315,000. We put a decent amount of money into it, but still made out with a small return after covering our expenses and paying realtor commissions. We upgraded to a home in the same city that checked almost all of our boxes. It was a significant upgrade in amenities, had big windows, open floorplan, and a beautiful kitchen. We have loved living in the house and really couldn’t have been much happier with it during most of our time living here. The neighbors are also amazing and were our biggest hesitation in finally deciding to make the move. The house was the perfect place to raise our first two children. We have been just a few minutes walk from a splash pad and multiple parks. They also made friends with many of the neighbor kids. It has been a place that we were truly proud to call home. When we only had two children, we had an extra bedroom in the upper level that we had setup as a playroom. It was so nice to have a kid dedicated area of the home and the ability to close the door and pretend like the freaking disaster of toys wasn’t there. When we had our third child that extra bedroom got repurposed to a nursery. Even before the pandemic I had grown a huge fondness for working from home. I had a home office setup in the basement and spent several years using that room as a productive space that I truly enjoyed spending time in, but I eventually grew sick of working in the basement. Somedays I would start working in our uncomfortable dining room just to be able to work on the main level. Even though the basement was a walkout with decent natural light, it just didn’t feel the same as being on the bright main level. We also grew sick of having a small narrow bedroom closet that we just never had enough room for storing both of our clothes. We also didn’t have some amenities that we wished for like a laundry room sink or a guest bedroom. Out of curiosity, we had started looking at some open houses and online listings a couple years ago, but at the time decided the house was perfect while we only had 2 kids and would rather make the leap of purchasing a vacation home that could double as an investment. This winter after adding a third child to the mix six month’s earlier and spending more time than ever at home due to the pandemic decided we were ready to get serious about looking for a new home. We decided that our finances were in order and made the decision that we were ready to move. It is strange for the mind to make the decision that you are ready to make a change in your life as big as where you call home. Home is a big deal for both of us and a top priority in our lives. We still loved the home, but decided we still had a long life to live and if we were going to make the leap into a bigger home, we might as well do it while we could make a good return off the sale of our current home, interest rates were low and we had the ability to enjoy it for a long time. We also decided that we were ready to get serious about putting a reasonable investment towards finding our dream home. After crunching what we would consider our most likely worst case scenario, we landed on a budget of $850,000. We made the decision that if we could find our dream home in the ballpark of $850,000, we would make the jump.

Our Dream Home Wish List

• Bonus room above garage for kid’s playroom

• 4 bedrooms on upper level

• On-suite bathroom for our daughter’s room

• 2 main floor offices

• Butler’s pantry for coffee bar

• Upper level laundry room

• Fireplace in basement

• Workout room in basement

• Guest bedroom in basement

• Bright, open and modern

• Nice yard not backing up to a street or on the corner

• Screen Porch or 4-Season porch

• Target budget of $850,000

We actually thought that we purchased a 4 year old home in July that checked all of the boxes except a finish based that we were excited to take on as a future project. The yard also wasnt exactly what we were imagining, but we decided it would work and confidently made the commitment by making an offer. The realtor for the sellers was an idiot and ruined the deal. Long story short, we presented an offer, the seller’s countered, we agreed to their requests in writing and then they ghosted us. They received another offer that was higher and the realtor never called for final and best offers, so we lost it! What an idiot, we definitely would have bid more and the sellers could have made more. We bid $735,000 on a $725,000 asking price; it ended up selling for $750,000. There are a lot of idiots in certain professions unfortunately, but that is a story for another day.

After that deal fell through we continued to look, but were disappointed once we had the chance to purchase a home that checked nearly all of our boxes. There was a new construction neighborhood being developed in our same city by the same builder. They had a spec home for sale that was the same floor plan as the home that we liked, but included some additional perks like a slightly larger garage, extra space in the main floor office, a larger walk in closet and a finished basement. We also really liked how the lot backed up to a small preserved area and the neighborhood pool so there wouldn’t be another house looking right into the back of ours.

If you’re addicted to the thrill of finding a good deal, you have to come to terms with the fact that you are not going to get the thrill of getting an amazing deal when you commit to buying a new build home. Even I was able to come to terms with the fact that when you’re buying your dream home that you will likely live in for the next 10-30 years, you might as well get exactly what you want within reason. It turns out that some things can’t be justified the thrill of getting a great deal.