Closing Time

May 5, 2006

While this could have been about the Semi­sonic song of the same name (a well-written tune if there ever was one), I’m instead refer­ring to a mon­u­men­tal, life-changing, exhil­i­rat­ing event that occured a mere 11 hours ago.

As of today, May 5th (Cinco de Mayo), my wife and I are now proud home owners.

After years of liv­ing with the ‘rents (par­ents), which really was a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence with con­flict few and far between and being renters of an acco­mo­dat­ing town­house, we decided the time was right.

To think, this home buy­ing process began back in Jan­u­ary and took a gru­el­ing 5 months to work through the muck that the pre­vi­ous owner got her­self in — namely a loom­ing fore­clo­sure and back­ruptcy — and our lay­wer inform­ing us that he thought we were crazy, some­how it all worked out in the long, long, long run.

Now all we need to do is make sev­eral trips to Home Depot and touch up var­i­ous areas, oh, and fur­nish the place and then we’ll truly feel at home.

 

12 comments

Our fam­ily just bought a house, and we’ve been mak­ing some trips to Home Depot too.

Our first ever house. Sweet feel­ing right?

by Omar on May 5, 2006 at 8:52 pm. Reply #

Sweeter than sugar sweet­ener! Luck­ily, Home Depot is just around the bend.

by kartooner on May 5, 2006 at 9:05 pm. Reply #

Hey, con­grats! Any tips for some­one who will be look­ing to buy here in the next few years?

by Nathan Smith on May 6, 2006 at 2:19 am. Reply #

“sev­eral” trips to Home Depot? You will live there. You will get a babysit­ter just so you can go on dates to Home Depot on Fri­day nights.

Take the work you think you will do, mul­ti­ply your time esti­mate by 3 or add five years, whichever is great­est, and mul­ti­ply your cost esti­mates by 10.

But it’s all worth it in the end.

Con­grat­u­la­tions. Looks like a cool house.

by Eric on May 6, 2006 at 4:31 pm. Reply #

Con­grats! That’s a life-changing mile­stone for sure, spe­cially in these times when get­ting your own home just seems to get harder by the minute (I can pic­ture a long, long road ahead for me!)…

Once you get all set, you gotta throw the mother of all par­ties to celebrate!

by beto on May 6, 2006 at 4:33 pm. Reply #

Con­grats on the new house Erik, your mother would of been proud of you, as am I. To think you have a home at the age of 25 years is won­der­ful. Tell Chessie I’m proud of her and her abil­ity to man­age money so darn well, also for lov­ing you, my son so much!

We’ll talk tomorrow.…say around 5:00 on the webcam?

Again, you make me so proud.…now get busy paint­ing!
Love,
Dad

by Dad on May 6, 2006 at 10:52 pm. Reply #

Con­grats on the new home!

by Max on May 8, 2006 at 9:48 am. Reply #

w00t!

I have echo Eric though. You think you have no time now? You have no idea.

Home Depot is your new home. The house is just the place you’ll sleep in when you’re not at Home Depot.

You remem­ber when I closed on my house last spring, yeah? Right around the time I dropped off the face of the planet? Yep. Not a coincidence.

Con­grat­u­la­tions, enjoy it!

by Adam Michela on May 8, 2006 at 9:54 am. Reply #

Nathan: Yes, have patience. Our expe­ri­ence was a rare one. Typ­i­cally, clos­ing takes 2–3 months, more or less whereas our clos­ing took 5 months because of prob­lems on the seller’s end of things.

Another tip: Don’t be afraid to buy a home that requires a bit of TLC. It sure beats buy­ing a home that doesn’t need any fix­ing and you, as the buyer, decide to start from square one.

Eric: Hahaha. I was afraid of that!

Max: Hey, long time man! Thanks alot! I’ll be upload­ing some Flickr pho­tos, before and after ad dur­ing the ren­o­va­tion process.

Adam: When you fell off the face of the planet, I fig­ured either a) you were abducted by the NSA to work on their standards-based site (top secret of course) or b) you were in fact work­ing on your new house.

by kartooner on May 9, 2006 at 9:50 pm. Reply #

Con­grats my friend! Hope all is well.

by Donnie Jeter on May 10, 2006 at 4:10 am. Reply #

Con­grats! Thats a huge step man! My wife and I are still in the process of con­struct­ing our home.

by trench on May 12, 2006 at 8:19 pm. Reply #

“sev­eral trips to Home Depot”.

AH, wel­come to the years of home own­er­ship. Those “sev­eral trips” will even­tu­ally turn into once or twice a week­end :)

It’s actu­ally fun watch­ing your home and yard come alive when you put time and effort into it.

by Bryan on May 17, 2006 at 9:53 am. Reply #

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