A couple of y’all have already guessed it! We’re officially building our dream home!!!! Holding in this secret from everyone was so hard but we wanted to soak it all up before announcing it. I can’t believe I’m actually saying these words. We’re building our forever home.
A little background story; Ever since I found out I was pregnant with Liam, I’ve been dreaming and working towards a home where my children would grow up, play in, and for our family to simple call this house their permanent home. Our family has never had a permanent home. The last 5 years we’ve moved almost every year and knew that this current place was only temporarily. Every 9 months, we would be packing up a U-Haul or looking for another rental home. Before children, the idea of moving from city to city sounded appealing but it didn’t fit our lifestyle once we had children.
The last 2 years (and currently) we’ve been living in our Houston house (which we rent from my mom). We have free range to do whatever we want but we all knew that it would be sold within 2-4 years. I’m forever grateful to have my moms help. My mom really pushed this idea of “building a home” a few weeks ago and her support through it all has been incredible.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN…
Margret our best friend invited us on a playdate last month. Little did we know, we’d be building a house 11 days later. As Tommy and I drove through the neighborhood, we INSTANTLY fell in love. It truly was love at first site. A few days later we decided to go see some homes, just for fun. As we saw the model homes and obsessed over the neighborhood, the consideration of building a home here was growing. Tommy and I looked so sketchy because we’d drive around the entire neighborhood 3-5 times a week look at homes.
FINANCE BASICS: After a week of constantly looking at homes and discussing it through, we decided to sit down and discuss the finances (I know, fun stuff). My mom had just built a home so she was experienced with the entire process. We knew that the mortgage couldn’t be more than 20% of our monthly income, we had to qualify for a low interest rate, and we had to look at the down deposit (this can range from 0-25% in most cases). We got a pre-approval letter verifying what we would move forward with and this was what we need to say “Okay, let’s start building this house”.
KNOWING OUR OPTIONS: Our realtor, Helen was extremely helpful. She showed us all of our options. We drove around the entire city looking at model homes, inventory homes, and other listings. She was the one who recommended us to slow down and to not get caught up in looking at new houses. When Tommy and I originally started looking at houses, we thought this one model was THE ONE! We were so set on this house but after Helen showed us all of our options, we were able to sit down and figure out what we needed (square footage, backyard size, upgrade options, etc). We spent days going through who we wanted to build our home, where we wanted our house to be, what the standard features were in the homes, how much constructional upgrades would be, pricing, negotiating, etc. When looking at homes, ask what is standard. Model homes typically have tons of upgrades and can be misleading. See if there are empty homes available and ask what is all upgraded versus standard. Coventry will be our builder and we’re so excited. They offered everything we needed and are able to customize soo much!
CHOOSING OUR LOT: Then we had to decide where we wanted to build. We had to choose a lot and look at square footage, if it was on the corner, if it had a lake view, how much more was it, etc. My mom and dad had to make sure the house was in a good spot. In our culture, we have several superstitions. Our street number can’t add up to certain numbers (like zero) or it’ll be bad luck, it can’t face a certain direction, and must have good Feng shui. There was one lot that didn’t cost any additional finances and before we went to go look, I told Tommy “Hey, if those numbers don’t add up to a good luck number” we can’t get it, lol. We ended up finding another lot that had more space.
SIGNING PAPERS. After 11 days and 6 hours later, we signed for a new build home! I was so nervous because it is a huge commitment but my mom assured me that it was meant to be. We signed on 10/10/20 and can’t wait to see everything come together.
This is a new chapter for our Family and I’m excited to continue sharing!
xo,
Annie