March 29, 2008

A house to call home

So we have a house! It's a 3 bedroom 2 bath house, 1600 square feet and built in 2003. The best part is that we got it through the Good Neighbor Next Door Program (GNND). Let me explain really quick. The Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) buys foreclosed homes and then sells them through the GNND program. The BEST part is that the homes are sold for 50% off! Only teachers, firefighters, EMTs and police officers qualify. Finally somebody rewards teachers! We may not get the best pay, but we get homes for 50% off! Anyways, in Charlotte there's anywhere from 10-15 homes per week. Some of them need a ton of work and some need next to nothing. New homes are posted every Friday and you have to make a decision by the next Tuesday. Once you look at a home you tell your Realtor if you want to put a bid on it. The only downside to the program is that anybody that puts a bid on a house goes into a random lottery and a name is drawn for who gets the house. Yes, a random lottery. Anyways, we've been looking for a couple of months and we've placed 6 bids, but finally our name was drawn! We found out this last Wednesday and we'll close in about 1 month and move in about 2 months! I'm so excited! We really lucked out because our house needs nothing to move in, but we're going to make some upgrades such as flooring, paint and lighting just to personalize it a little. It's in a better part of town, next to a huge and nice park, and only 5 minutes from church. We'll have to switch wards and we're sad, but it'll all work out. Anyways, here's a few pictures!

Front of the House

First Bedroom

Second Bathroom

Kitchen

Living Room

Second Bedroom

Second Bedroom Again

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom Again