Doing the Moon Walk.

Today, we're doing a little back tracking. So...moon walk...going backward...get it? Good.

Let's talk about the whole how-we-actually-purchased-this-house thing and I'm also going to give you a bit of a run down on our financial situation. For us, it was a long process that involved a year of looking, changing of expectations, and finally figuring out exactly what we were interested in. Our hearts were broken many times along the way, but we finally were able to let a house back-in-our-heart (see what I did there? ha.)

{our very first picture together as a couple}

Actually, the whole thing started in the summer of 2008. Jonathan and I had been dating for a year and for some crazy reason, we thought it would be a good idea to buy a house. Our idea was that Jonathan would live in it and fix it up while I finished college six hours away. Well our vision was short lived--you saw that coming didn't you? Yeaaa.  They tried to tell us we're too young, too young to really be in love. 

{source}

We saw approximately ten houses by the time we realized, purchasing a house was very financially irresponsible. We also noticed that our idea of what we wanted in a house was way unrealistic. A fixer upper in our price range was very thriller-esc to say the least. So, I headed back to school in the fall with much lower expectations and a mind set that a house was not in the near future.

*  *  *  *

Fast forward to December 2010. We had been married for 5 months and were itching to purchase a house. Armed with our previous experience we were ready to brave the housing market again. We started by doing a lot of research. I spent many hours looking at houses online and researching the housing market where we live. I really wanted to make sure I understood what was a good value house-wise. We also tried to figure out what we could afford without becoming completely house poor. Enter pre-approval here.

From December until June of 2011 we did our own thing. We would look at a house online and then proceed to drive by it, to catch a glimpse in person.  If we were still interested, we would call up the listing realtor. We visited ten houses and looked at 30+ online before we decided that this approach wasn't working for us. So, we made the decision to ask a friend of ours to be our realtor. He stepped in and we looked at another ten houses or so.

At one point we found "the" house. It was in great condition and had a fantastic back yard. It needed minimal work before we moved in, but we knew we could work on it over time and it would be a fantastic investment. Problem was, they wanted $80,000 for it. So we outlined all the the work that needed to be done and decided to offer them $50,000. They came back with a counter offer at $70,000. So, it was a Billie Jean is not my lover moment on the houses part-- it just wasn't meant to be. We kept claiming he was the one, but he kept saying we were just a girl. So we did the Billie Jean Shuffle on outta there.

We kept looking and looking. Another ten houses visited, another ten disappointments. Finally, in December, around Christmas, a listing popped up that I had never seen before.

Apparently, our realtor was looking at the same listing around the same time too, because he contacted us right away about the house. We agreed to meet a couple days later to see the house. When we visited we instantly fell in love. This was it. It felt as though we had seen her face a thousand times. It was familiar. So, we put in an offer.

Mind you, we saw the house three days after it had been put on the market. Our offer of $49,000 went in two days later. They countered us at $51,600 and we yelled 'SOLD!' It was the best feeling ever. So, the house was on the market less then a week by the time she became ours. I have to say, I knew this was the one by the reaction Jonathan had. Sure I had been excited by houses before, but he had never shown this much excitement. Usually it took convincing on my part for him to even consider a place. We just knew.

So here is where we ended up. Thanks to my awesome father who has allowed us to live in one of his apartments, we were able to save up a down payment of $10,000. So we ended up taking out a mortgage for $41,600. At this point I have to say that this is another reason why we knew this house was 'the one' -- it wasn't going to make us house poor. We would have enough money to fix 'er up and to pay the mortgage. Plus there would be enough left over to comfortably live off of.

So, we mortgaged $41,600 at a 15-year-fixed rate of 4.125%. By doing a 15 year mortgage, as compared to a 30 year mortgage, we are saving approximately $15,000 on interest in the long run. We also opted to do bi-weekly payments as well. This has made our loan go down to a 13 year loan and also saved us another $2,000 + in interest.

Our bi-weekly payments add up to the same amount as doing monthly payments, the only difference is that two months out of the year, there is an extra payment we owe. In essence, we are paying 13 months of payments in 12 months. So, to the tune of about $550 extra a year, we are saving two years on our mortgage and thus a lot of money in interest payments. We think it works out pretty well.

So, in honor of this Michael Jackson inspired post I now present you with this wedding rendition of 'Thriller'

So please share! What are your money-saving tips for owning a house? We would love some more input!