Our New Home!

This journey to find our first home has been a long time coming. Over the past ten years, Brad and I have collectively worked for nine different companies, moved more than a dozen times and have lived in four different states – not to mention Brad’s year long stint in Australia. Needless to say, change was just part of our routine. I am so grateful for these adventures and I credit them for how much we’ve grown personally and professionally, but I started to find myself longing for some stability and familiarity. Late last year, we decided it was time to move back home to South Florida. We moved out of our Austin rental home in December, put everything in storage and planned to do some traveling before moving in temporarily family.

A Long Road Home

While we didn’t expect the home search to be quick, I don’t think we were prepared for just how long the year actually felt. As I’m sure it has for all of us, 2020 really threw us our fair share of challenges (including a canceled sabbatical a canceled wedding, a new job for Brad and a scary cancer diagnosis for our sweet dog, Soko.) By the time we were ready to start house-shopping, we were already physically and emotionally exhausted. Pair that with an unexpectedly competitive housing market and we were really feeling hopeless. Inventory was so low that we were making high offers on homes we weren’t even sure about and still getting outbid left and right. We decided to try our luck by sending out letters to see if we could find an off-market seller. For the most part, we heard crickets. But one person responded. So we set up a showing.

The moment we walked into the home, we had that feeling that everyone tells you about (but that I totally did not think was real.) The house had never been updated and wasn’t necessarily our style, but it just felt like ours. We were elated. This was it!

But we couldn’t celebrate yet. The seller already had two other unsolicited offers on the home that he hadn’t responded to yet. After seeing the home and how meticulously he cared for it, we had an inkling that money wasn’t the motivator for him. So we made a fair offer and decided to win him over with an offer letter promising to take care of his home and to fill it with love. And it WORKED! He chose us. Which makes this whole thing feel all the more special.

We ended up going through an excruciatingly long closing with lots of hiccups and near disasters. We held our breath for nearly four months as we made it past one hurdle after another. To walk into those doors the day the house was turned over to us felt a little bit like a re-birth. It was finally time for the next chapter.

We have so many plans for making this house our own over the next several years. It was a well-loved home but I’m really excited to give it the update it deserves. And I hope you’ll join me on that journey!

For the full video tour and all the scoop on our reno plans, check out my “New Home” story highlights on Instagram.

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