Our First Home Purchase

Note: I actually wrote this when we were in the process of buying the house (and didn't publish it). At this point we have been living in the house for over a month and we still absolutely adore this house. We are hoping spring comes early this year so that we can utilize the deck and yard.

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We have wanted to purchase a house ever since we got married, but the door really wasn't open to us the last 4.5 years or so. The biggest obstacle has been the down payment and the fact that we didn't want to buy a house with too much debt.

Since about September 2009 we discovered the rural development loan which would allow us to 100% finance a home purchase if we could find a house in an area that they consider rural. That combined with the $8,000 tax credit meant that we not only could be in a house before the end of 2009, but that we could take out a huge chunk of our debt and be debt free earlier, if we purchased a house this year.

There were several options that we found, and we spent a lot of time looking at and re-looking at the properties that were listed on MLS. We found a house where the seller was pretty desperate in getting the property out of his hands. It was in a good location in a great neighborhood, and we loved the house. In fact, it seemed almost too nice for our first house (at least in what we had pictured in our head), and there are very few things we do not like about it. From the second we walked into the house, we fell in love with it. The more we thought about the house, the more we realized that this was the one we were going to purchase.

Below is an itemized list of things we like about this house:

• We love the kitchen/dining room/living room layout. It has a very open feeling and gives us plenty of space in having people over. It also has a much larger feeling to it than our previous properties (it has vaulted ceilings) and it has a lot of windows. On top of that, the layout makes it easy to make things very kid friendly.
  
• It has a large car garage.
• It has three official bedrooms, and one extra room where I can have my office. So if we do decide to add to our family, we have plenty of space (or a guest bedroom).
  
• It has a huge room that can be used as a dedicated theater room or as a gaming room in the basement.
• There is a large fenced backyard with three mature trees. The back fence is lined with a lot of large trees that will give us privacy in the spring and summer seasons. There is also a nice mature tree in the front yard. 

• There is a large deck in the backyard, which is partially covered. This was a huge plus on my list.
  
• They installed an underground sprinkler system in both the front and backyard.
• There are a ton of gardening spots in both the front and backyard (which are also watered by the underground sprinkler system). Both Andrea and I are excited about doing some gardening (fresh vegetables and flowers).
• There is 2.5 bathrooms, including a master bathroom.
• There is a small, detached storage shed on the property.

We could see ourselves living at this house the rest of our lives. We have never felt this way about any of the properties we rented. We are very grateful to God for being able to afford this house and we are excited in how we can bless other people with this house for many years to come.