I would have bet a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g that our next home purchase was going to be a ranch…a fixer-upper ranch to be exact. I have a major weakness for bringing homes back to life, so I figured since I did it in New Jersey, I’d find myself bringing another ranch back to life in North Carolina. I really fell in love with the light, bright, open and airy living space that our former ranch provided for us. It just felt good.
Needless to say, our North Carolina house hunt began with a ranch in mind. We would pour over realtor.com’s website every day, using their map feature to zoom in on areas of the city we thought we might like. We’d glance at all the homes in our price range, but the ones we ended up seeing first were all fixer-upper ranches. In fact, during our second house hunting trip, two of the homes we viewed ended up being contenders and we put an offer in on one. Like the housing market in our New Jersey neighborhood, homes in our new city moved quickly in our price range. If we even remotely liked a place, we had to jump on it.
Our offer was on a foreclosure that I was already re-designing in my head, and thankfully we didn’t have to wait incredibly long for the bank to counter us. Since their counter was reasonable, we assumed the house would most likely be ours, but we quickly realized the bank countered a second perspective buyer, who responded to their counter first, leaving us without the home.
We were very disappointed, but kept reminding ourselves that sometimes rejection is God’s protection. There were some things we loved about the house, but some that would have really been an issue. Although the layout was quite different from our New Jersey ranch, there was something about it that felt too familiar for the new beginning we were embarking on. Plus, I couldn’t help but wonder if we rushed our decision to buy that house partially out of fear that if we didn’t get that one, what else would be available due to the hot market. Thankfully, God put the breaks on for us and sent us back to the drawing board.
Little did I know, that drawing board would be full of colonials, thanks to a push from hubby and my mom. Day in and day out, we poured over so many listings. One listing seemed to linger in the back of our minds, and after more of a roller coaster ride in the world of house hunting, I decided to put the lingering home on our list to see. I was reluctant at first for a few reasons…the price, the size, the not-so-private backyard and, like all most other colonials, the more closed off layout. (Remember me wanting a light, bright, open and airy living space??) These things kept me pushing this house off, but I finally felt like it was time. And the minute we turned onto the street, I knew it was game over. Hubby, my mom and I all let out an “ut ohhh” before we even pulled into the driveway because we were in love. (Which is funny because the same thing happened with our wedding venue. The minute we pulled into the parking lot, we knew it was the place for our special day.)
We got out of the car and our faces said it all. Our realtor joked that she should have brought us there first and we could have avoided going to the previous three or four listings. Walking up the front steps and then into the spacious foyer…it just felt right. The more we walked through the house, the more we knew this was it. We found our home.