WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! I am so happy that I can finally share this! This is something that we have been working towards for a while now, and we are so happy that we're finally here.
When we moved to LA last year, we knew that we wanted to buy a house. We were sick of paying rent, and we knew it was time to start getting serious about buying our own place. Thankfully, Vince's parents live in LA and they offered to let us stay with them rent-free while we saved up for our own place. They created a little apartment area inside their house for us and we're very thankful for it.
We had been watching the market/browsing houses on Redfin pretty much since we moved here. We went to a few open houses to get a feel of the different neighborhoods, and just kind of kept our eyes out. We were pretty much open to anywhere, but we ended up narrowing it down to somewhere near the coast. Vince was born & raised in Silver Lake (right near DTLA) and was ready to be close to the beach. I grew up in New England, and we both love the beach so we decided to narrow our search down to beach city. We picked a few cities that we like, and ultimately landed on one in Orange County & found the neighborhood we wanted to be in and went from there.
Honestly, once we found a realtor we wanted to work with, it was a surprisingly quick process. I need to preface this by saying we do realize just how lucky we are that this process has gone so quickly and smoothly. We have multiple friends that are also in the process of buying as well who have told us about how they have been putting in multiple offers & looking for months. Our realtor even warned us from the beginning that right now there are a lot of buyers, but not a lot of inventory. Our first weekend we met with our realtor to tour houses, we found our house. It was surprisingly the first place we looked at. I had looked at this townhome a few times online, but honestly the photos weren't the greatest and I wasn't completely sold just from the photos. I kept going back and forth, and then on Friday I texted our realtor asking if we could add it on to the tours the next day. She got back to me and said yes. Vince was not sold at all haha. Like to the point of he didn't even really want to go tour it. Lesson to anyone who is selling their house: always spend the money for good photos. It makes a huge difference. When we walked up to the condo, I liked the outside, I liked that it was an end unit & there was a quiet street on the other side. Then we walked in, and we looked at each other and before I could say anything, Vince said "I love it!" I like to remind him that going to tour this house was my idea haha! We walked through and instantly could see ourselves there. There are a few minor changes we want to make, but overall we love the house.
We went to tour the next place and did not have the same feeling as we did in the first. We talked with our realtor about how we felt so confident about the first place and she reassured us that this was completely normal. She said that if we wanted to think about it, that was totally fine. We drove home and couldn't stop talking about the house. I woke up the next morning thinking about the house and just knew that if we didn't put in an offer and someone else got it, I would be crushed. We reached out to our realtor and told her we wanted to put in an offer. She had spoken with the owner's realtor and he told her what they would sell for. We went in at that exact price, I wrote a letter to the owners, and we sent in our offer. Trying to stay occupied all day and not let my mind wander and think about the house was so hard!! I was honestly so worried someone else was going to get an offer in before us.
Around 6pm that night our realtor sent us a text that said "Congratulations!!" and I flipped out! I could not believe we were BUYING A HOUSE!!! And, to top it all off, it was my birthday. :)
I'm excited to start sharing more house content including the renovations, decorating the house, and RECIPES (can you tell I'm excited for my kitchen?!). Be sure to follow along on Instagram as there will be a lot of behind the scenes especially on stories.
Well if you've made it to this point, congratulations! Haha this was definitely a long-winded post but I'm honest just so excited to share everything with you all!!
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