In January of 2020 my husband and I went to the temple (a house of worship in our religion) in hopes to find peace, and guidance for this coming year. We were living in a townhouse that we didn’t love, next to neighbors who caused a lot of stress for our family. We were craving peace, and growth. When we walked out of the temple on that cold night in January I had the thought come into my mind that we would be in a house by the end of this year.
End of this year? That sounded crazy to me. Tanner had just started a business in May of 2019 and after having Natalie we were barely saving any money for savings. I couldn’t see how we’d be able to find any money to put down towards a home. That week my husband, Tanner, and I started looking at homes. We looked into a local building company and found a company who were building homes in a neighborhood we always wanted to be in. We thought building would be too big of a cost for us to make, so we brushed that idea to the side. There was no way we could build a new home in our perfect neighborhood.
We didn’t talk about buying a house again, but I would look on Realtor and Zillow everyday. Every time I would look at a home for our family I felt stressed and that it wasn’t what we wanted. I felt trapped thinking about moving into a home I didn’t love, and moving into a neighborhood I didn’t like. Buying a home would lock us in, we needed to be smart.
I always thought that as a starter home you couldn’t get what you wanted. You had to get a small fixer-upper. I felt that that is what we had been told. I thought we couldn’t buy a home we loved, that was too naive. I was getting really discouraged because nothing sat well with me. We also got more tough news that we may not be able to buy a home with Tanner’s status as self-employed since he had only been self-employed for a year.
Come March we started to see some growth in our income. It was a lot more than we had ever seen before and it got me thinking that maybe we could buy a house by May of 2021. But Tanner brought up to me the idea of building with that company we had looked into in January. I brushed him off the first two times because I didn’t think he was too serious about it, but the third time he brought up the idea of building he told me he kept feeling this nagging feeling that we needed to look into building with that company again. When Tanner told me that, I was all ears and I agreed that we should look into it.
The main problem I had was that there was no point in looking into building when we wouldn’t be able to get a loan because he had only been self-employed for two years. But that weekend we got a call and an opportunity to make it so that we could get approved for a loan this year if we wanted because of some job opportunities for Tanner. Things seemed like they were falling into place.
We called the building company and they told us their prices and gave us some recommendations for banks to go through to get pre-approved for a loan. Our good friends also gave us their friend’s number who is a realtor and actually works with people moving into the new builds with the company we wanted to build with. With his help we got in contact with another bank that got us pre-approved for a loan.
Two weeks ago Tanner, the girls, and I went in to meet with the salesman about building a home. Homes were selling quickly, and we had prayed and felt good about the decision to build. We have seen so many blessings and opportunities come to us that have helped us be able to afford and get approved to do this. We signed the contract, put some earnest money down, and drove to our lot.
This has been an extremely exciting opportunity for our family. I thought that we would rent for years and years. I never expected to be buying a home, let alone building a home in an amazing neighborhood. I am excited for our family, and for our girls to have a home to grow up in.
The house should be finished come mid December (or early January if things get pushed back). We also get to go in next Monday and pick out some colors for our home!
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