Our new street is perfect for walks, scooters, and bike rides.
Talk about a month in the making. Sheeeesh. This has been one of the most difficult transitions we’ve ever made. But it’s worth it. As the dust settles we can see what an enormous blessing it is to be in a house with a fantastic yard, wonderful neighbors, and a lot more space for our family to grow up in.
It’s actually a pretty miraculous story how we ended up finding the house. I asked someone from SJ’s school for a realtor referral and she recommended Carole Huhn. I contacted Carole right away and the first thing she did was set up a meeting with a loan officer. So we met with Ginger Vining and within no time we were preapproved. A week later we scheduled our first meeting to go look at houses. Carole sent me some listings and told me to pick 3 or 4 that we wanted to look at. J and I were really picky and to be honest we weren’t too keen on any of the choices. That’s okay Carole told us. Just pick some that are nearby and we’ll consider it a meet and greet. We’ll walk through and you can tell me what you do and don’t like about the houses.
We agreed to this and left the house that Saturday with zero expectations of finding a house. As it turns out, Carole learned ahead of time that one of the houses we were scheduled to see had mold in it. When Carole found out about the mold she threw in this other house at the last minute to look at instead. The house was in the back of a quiet neighborhood with lots of trees. As we walked through we immediately fell in love with the place. J wanted to put in an offer. I was shocked. We weren’t planning on buying anything this soon. This was only the second house we had seen. J was even pickier and more hesitant than I was, so I trusted his judgement. Since this house was fresh on the market we knew that if we wanted to have a chance at living there we would need to act fast.
There were a lot of negotiations back and forth between us and the seller. It was intense, but in the end we got the house for the price we wanted and we even scored an FHA loan with a good interest rate along with grant money from OHFA. It was an amazing deal.
I’m highlighting all of the highs, but we closed a month ago and believe me there have been some rock bottom lows in the midst of all of this. Buying a house is no cake walk. I do want to give a big shout out though to our realtor Carole Huhn with Comey and Shepherd and our loan officer Ginger Vining with Park National Bank. They went above and beyond to get us a good deal and would not stop until we were 100% satisfied. We took some hits in this process, but they kept fighting for us and we are extremely grateful to have had them in our corner. If you live in the Cincinnati area and are looking to buy or sell a house these are the ladies you need on your team. I will always be grateful for their guidance.
Our family with Carole and the neighbors dog Walter who is already like one of our own.
We aren’t quite settled yet, but we are getting there. On Sunday we had our first Easter in the house.
Read my hard boiled eggs secrets here.
The fresh cut lilacs are from the tree in our front yard.
It was a lot of fun. My entire family came out and for most of them it was the first time to see our house.
It was also Elle’s first Easter egg hunt.
It was a wonderful gathering with beautiful weather.
Fun for all ages.
I really needed it.
After 5 moves in 5 years I am so very excited, relieved, and honored to announce that we are finally in a home of our own. And it feels good to be home.
Leave A Comment