Buying A House

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate November 2001

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My husband and I had been married for almost two months, when we started thinking about buying a house. We had been living in an apartment for about four months, and we knew we wanted a bigger place. We wanted to have a backyard for our son and all the other commodities that come with owning a house. We were a little scared about committing to a house note for so many years. However, our logic to that was that we were paying almost as much for an apartment that would never be ours. Therefore, we decided we wanted to have our own place, to which we could change, add or do anything to if we wanted to. Subsequently, we began the search for our new house! The search was difficult in the beginning and time consuming. We had to decide on a price range, how much we wanted to pay a month, and also consider interest rates, which at the time were up and down.

We looked for a couple of weeks, then one day we were driving down a street and we noticed this cute little house for sale. The front yard looked nice, and the house seemed to be the right size for us. We took note of the information and the next day our Realtor arranged an appointment for us to see it.

It is no wonder that people say to keep an open mind when looking for a house to buy. That was the advice I received from a friend that had done this before. She told me that when looking at a house for the first time, not to be disappointed if I saw something I did not like, as long as it could be fixed or changed. Therefore, I kept that in mind when my husband and I went to see the house the first time. When we first walked in, the living room was pretty spacious, but it had hardly anything in it. The people that owned the house then, had a desk, a table (not a coffee table or center table) just a table, that looked like a picnic table, and a couch. As a result, I had to try to picture the living room with our furniture and our things and try to imagine how it would look. Next we noticed the carpet was in pretty bad shape. We could not tell if its original color was gray or blue. The carpet would definitely need to be changed.

We then continued on to the back yard, which was not attractive at all. There were a few nice bushes, but they needed to be trimmed. Then there was also a dog that had dug most of the grass out. Despite all this, my husband and I knew the backyard had potential if it was well taken care of.

Next, we went back inside to see the rest of the house. There were three bedrooms, two medium size bedrooms on one side of the house and the master bedroom on the other side. We looked at the smaller bedrooms first and I immediately knew if we decided to buy this house, which bedroom I wanted for my son. Again, our first impression was not a perfect one, but we knew that with a new carpet and new paint, this bedroom would be perfect for a four-year old. We then looked at the guest bathroom, which was located between the two small bedrooms. This was actually the cleanest room in the house, except the toilet was permanently stained from its use. However, we knew that it could easily be replaced. Next we looked at the master bedroom, which was a bit small but it would do fine. It would also have to be painted like the rest of the house.

We then looked at the master bathroom and closet. The closet was a good size closet, I personally could have used a bigger closet, but this one would do fine. The bathroom had a shower separate from the tub "" which was a plus for us! Both of us had gotten used to having a shower (separate from the bathtub) because of the apartment where we lived at the time "" it had the shower separate from the bathtub.

Over all, we had liked the house, its location, and size. It simply would need some improvements; nothing extraordinary. The final room we looked at was the kitchen, which was nice and roomy. The kitchen cabinets were a little dark for us that we knew we would need to change that eventually. The appliances were all black and very dirty. I have always preferred lighter colors, especially for a kitchen. In this case, I knew white would be a good color.

We were open-minded and decided we liked the house and we made an offer. The people that were selling the house were also buying a house and they wanted to close as soon as possible and quickly accepted. A few weeks later, we closed on the house. We had planned to paint the interior before moving in. My husband took care of that in a couple of weeks. We then picked a ceramic tile to replace the linoleum floors in the kitchen and the two bathrooms; then had that installed. Finally, we picked a carpet color; and had that installed just in time before our move-in date.

It was a lot of work, especially for my husband. He worked hard in painting the entire interior of the house and in making small repairs here and there. But in the end, it all turned out perfect! Despite the fact that our bills were bigger than we had anticipated, we were happy and excited to finally own our fist house. It took us about six months to have the house more to our like and be able to have visitors. We have been in this house for over a year now and we love it. We have had a couple of undesirable situations, but nothing major "" thank God. We are glad we made the decision to buy a house. Now that we look back at living in an apartment, we know we could never go back. We live in a good neighborhood, we have the backyard we wanted, we have plenty of room, and much more privacy.