We bought a brand new house!!!!

This post is going to be much for upbeat than the last couple have been. It's been a great distraction. Thank goodness!

We have been saving for quite a while to buy a house. The plan was to wait until the end the summer or the fall to buy so that we would have a bigger savings. With the Federal and State rebates going on and a new Schools program to cover our down payment we had more options.

We took at look at the Beazer homes just about a mile from our apartment a few months ago and really liked them, but the ones we could afford were townhomes and we really wanted a yard. A week ago today, my parents bought a house in that community and after hearing that one of the Cottages, they have a small backyard, had been reduced by $20,000 we became interested again. Unfortunately, by Tuesday evening when we went to walk through the house again, the one that had been reduced had been sold. The good news was that they had just started building another one of that model and it would be ready in July. We were happy that the house wouldn't be ready for another 3 months, so we would have 3 months more of savings in our pockets before closing. This house wasn't reduced, so with the help of the Beazer people they told us to low ball the offer and we'd meet somewhere in between. We ended up paying $20,000 under the list price, will get $2,000 in options towards upgrades, and Beazer is paying all of our closing costs. That added to all the rebates made it so that we would have our down payment and closing costs covered with nothing out of pocket unless we want to lower our monthly payments. We never thought we would be buying a brand new home for our first home, but we're really excited to watch it be built and to have input on upgrades. The nicest part about this community is that they have a really nice park (located across the street from my parents), movie nights in the park every month, farmer's market, lighting of the Christmas and pictures with Santa. We will be living 4 blocks from my parents house which I think will be really fun.

For the hour after we accepted the counter offer from the builder I was excited, but also nervous. I guess it would be weird if I wasn't since this is such a huge decision. I never regretted saying yes to buying the house, it's just a new phase in our lives which is scary and it is a lot of money. I'll attach a picture of the floorplan. It's a 2 bedroom, 2.5 baths, and it's almost 1300 square feet. We're looking forward to saying goodbye to this itty bitty apartment in 3 months!