What a wild, crazy and wonderful week it has been! In just the past three days, we’ve left our life behind in Texas to start a new adventure back home in Tennessee. One big part of that new adventure happened just yesterday afternoon. We officially became homeowners to a precious 101-year-old red bungalow in Memphis! Can I just say, “pinch me” right now?! Because none of this feels real yet!
This bright red house of ours feels like it was meant to be in more ways than one. The story of how it came to be is kind of a unique one. So sit back and relax while I spill all the details on our not-so-average journey to finding our first home.
We Knew Just What We Wanted Without Even Touring a Single Home
Patrick and I spent months browsing all the available homes in Memphis on various online realtor apps. For a while, it was just a fun little hobby. We would daydream about our future house by texting each other links back and forth – chatting about our likes, dislikes & how we’d make these random houses ours. At the time, we were not even close to being ready to leave Houston and make this daydream a reality. It was just pure & good fun!
If you read this post, you’ll see where I’m sharing why we made the move to Memphis, and why we suddenly we found ourselves in a position where we kind of had to decide that it was time to head back to Tennessee ASAP. Which basically meant, it was time to find a home stat!
During our daydreaming phase, we had found many homes online that we thought were just perfect for us. They were in the right neighborhood, had enough space, curb appeal, and even at the right price point too. Falling for a home when you’re not officially ready to make a move is a dangerous game! So after drooling over dozens of homes that all could have been the “one,” we figured once it was time for us to buy ourselves, there would be plenty of options available.
After all, we knew exactly which part of town and neighborhood we wanted to plant our roots. This area we wanted is filled with gorgeous older historic homes where you can walk to quirky coffee shops, restaurants, nightlife, parks, and even the zoo! Plus, this neighborhood sits only 10 minutes from my parents home! Having narrowed things down, we thought that finding our home was going to be easy peasy – even from 550 miles away!
But Once it Was Go Time …
Patrick and I finally had our green light and were ready to buy! Woohoo, we couldn’t believe it was TIME! We found an amazing real estate agent in Memphis, Katie Davidson, (who I can’t recommend enough) and got the ball rolling. She walked us through the entire home buying process, sharing all of the nitty-gritty details on making an offer to finding and negotiating the right home in a seller’s market. We finished our call with her scared to pieces about the many “what ifs” but also so excited we couldn’t handle it!
My little family decided we would come up to Memphis two weeks later on 4th of July weekend and tour as many houses as possible. I mean, of course, our new home would just have to be available & sitting there waiting just for us that very weekend … riiiight!? Haha … first time home buyer thinking you guys!
Leading up to our big visit, Patrick and I refreshed the RedFin app pretty much every other second. It became the most addicting thing!! But yet, nothing similar to the homes we stumbled upon & loved months before were showing up as listed. As it got closer to our visit, we decided if we didn’t fall in love with anything, I would stay up in Memphis with Annie and would just wait around for our perfect house to come available while Patrick finished up some projects in Houston.
Our family was urged by our Texas landlords to be out of our Houston house as soon as possible. They were itching to sell. Now that we were itching to buy, and with summer being a popular time for homes to go on the market, we had every bit of confidence that something would come available right when we needed it. But the surprising thing was … nothing that fit all of our criteria was available once we were ready! We figured we would just wait it out. Surely something would get listed soon.
A week and a half before we were set to drive up, I got a phone call from Patrick and he frantically said “Did you check the link I sent you!?! You’ll love this house!” I had been so on top of refreshing the RedFin app I couldn’t believe he scooped me on finding a potential house! I quickly pulled up the link, saw our red bungalow with its spacious front porch and had this strange feeling form in my gut along the lines of “Is this my home, is this really it!?”
It had been on the market for 2 hours. We hadn’t seen anything remotely similar to this home listed in months. Our wishlist was pretty picky y’all, five bedrooms, an older home with character, a garage (which is very hard to come by in this part of town), a big yard, open concept living space, and lots of natural light. This home had everything we wanted and so so so much more. It was too good to be true!
We Found THE House!! But the Down Side Was …
We were not in a position to pick up and drive to Memphis to see the red bungalow. I had a press trip in San Antonio in two days that I was locked into and Patrick had a whole lot going on at work. There was absolutely no way we could see this home in person in a timely manner. We’ve been watching somewhat similar homes in Memphis get listed and sell in a matter of days (or less) so we knew we had to act fast if we wanted this red bungalow to be ours.
While our realtor Katie couldn’t show the home off to us, she was luckily able to meet with my mom and a good lifelong friend of mine (aka my MOH!) who also recently bought a home. The three of them FaceTimed Patrick and I during the tour and showed us every single nook and cranny of this 101-year-old home. Carey, my good friend, recently bought a newer home in Memphis and the fact that she was just gushing about how well kept up this century-old house was so reassuring to hear.
After looking at picture after picture and even more videos that my friends and family took that evening, we felt confident enough to put an offer on the red house.
Did We Just Do the Craziest Thing Ever!?
Yes! But if we showed up and positively regretted our decision, our offer was contingent on seeing it at inspection. There was definitely an “out” if we needed it. Phew! Eight days later, we hit the road to Memphis for the 4th of July weekend. Instead of touring a number of homes, we only toured our home, our red bungalow.
The night before seeing it … I couldn’t sleep a wink! I was so worried I would walk in and not get “the feeling.” In every rental home, apartment and even college dorm, I’ve always had this crazy weird feeling when I’d see the space I’d live in for the first time before actually moving into it. Whatever that weird feeling was … meant something good. I’m a superstitious type of person so let’s chalk it up to that ha! But anyway, I was so nervous that I wouldn’t get my mojo feeling when seeing our new house. And what would I do if we walked in and it didn’t “feel” right but still checked everything off the list!?
Thankfully, it Felt Juuuust Right
Patrick and I were both beaming with glee when we drove up and saw our red bungalow in person. We toured the first floor with Katie and immediately fell in love! When we stepped outside I traipsed down the back porch stairs to the driveway and all of a sudden I just thought to myself, “This is the exact spot where Annie is going to learn to ride a bike.” The thought hit me out of nowhere and I just knew in my core that this was going to be our home.
The home inspection went great. Of course, there were a few minor things with a 101-year-old home, but nothing we thought we couldn’t handle. We left Memphis that weekend thrilled with what was to come and began counting down the days until closing.
After closing just yesterday, (eeeek!!) I’m riding on a high and my head is on cloud 9. You could say my version of cloud 9 right now is a land of paint chips, Pinterest pinning, and scheduling all sorts of handymen, internet installers and everything else in between until we move our furniture up in just two short weeks from now. It’s certainly been a whirlwind!
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Did you have a unique home buying experience too!? I still can’t believe that we never toured a home before buying our red bungalow but hey, it’s the 21st century and we Millenials do things differently! 😉 Wish me luck as we make our house a home in the coming weeks! And thank you all for following along with this wild ride of ours. & Expect to see a whole lot of home-related content soon, because I’m sure I won’t be able to help myself from sharing!
xo, alice
