Offer Accepted!

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, at least we have a signed purchase agreement.  We're now in the home inspection/mortgage loan phase.  SO EXCITING (and super stressful)!

We have been home shopping since we decided to move to Michigan.  We decided to move out here before making any decisions, so right now we're in a 3 month lease with the option to go month-to-month if we need to.

First we found a realtor (recommended from the Quicken Loan guy I was talking to).  And she seems to know her stuff.  She's owned her own company for 30 years.  Plus - she's from Canton... so she knows everything about this city.

Next we decided to focus our search only in Canton.  It is a lovely city with all the amenities we were looking for (Hobby Lobby, etc!)  It has 2 fabulous WalMarts, tons of new shopping centers, great library, beautiful parks, amazing ward, and tons of Ford employees.  The resale of our home someday down the road will be easy here - the houses go fast.

I noticed that no one has a fence in their yard out here.  The HOAs prohibit it.  But since the city doesn't snow plow the neighborhoods, you need HOAs to organize all that stuff.  Bummer!  I really really really wanted a yard with a fence.  The only way around that rule is if you have a pool.  If you are all familiar with me, you'll understand a pool is one of the last things I want to spend money on.  I was really upset at this - it really made me at odds with Michigan.  But I'm over it.  It's just the way it is out here.  I will figure something out...

The next problem we ran into was the HOAs don't let you park trailers outside on your property.  So that narrowed our search down to only homes with 3 car garages.

After that, the search got pretty easy.  There are only a limited number of homes in our price range, with 3 car garages, in Canton, that are new construction.

Last Friday we went and saw a home on Stanton Street.  We had been in several other homes in the same development, so we knew what the floor plan would be.  But this house has been really well taken care of.  It's a married couple without kids, non smokes, no animals (as best as we could tell).  They are really tidy and have taken care of the home.  Our realtor pointed out all the upgrades they put into the home.  Plus they had all the options that we liked.  We were really impressed with the condition of it.  We drove by it the next day and we saw the homeowner outside fixing the plastic curbing around their garden.  I appreciate their attention to detail and fixing the small things.

So we looked at a bunch of other comparable homes to find a fair price.  We found out that they haven't had any offers yet (since beginning of April).  So we decided to put in an offer that was reasonable, but pretty low.  They counter-offered as we expected, but not as high as we thought they would!  We felt like the price was really great bang for the buck!  So we took it!

These pictures are off the web.  I will take some of my own this week when we get it inspected.

Built in 2002.  2350 sq feet.  approx 0.3 acre lot.
Main floor: kitchen, family room, living room, laundry room, half bath, 3 car garage, back deck with hot tub
2nd floor: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
basement: unfinished (but they painted the concrete floor so it's not scary down there)