Posts Tagged "Buying a home in Smyrna"

Priscilla and I bought a house in March of this year. It is a suburbanized home in Smyrna right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We took our time to find the right one. We worked with a mortgage broker and determined how much we can afford and how big of a loan we can get.  In turn we would know how much house we could buy. Priscilla and I got a kick ass deal on the two story, three bedroom house in Atlanta. The economy told us it was the best time to buy with the home prices and interest rates being at an all time low. We dove in head first and bought our first home. I had saved up some money from freelancing and had a chunk of money from my late grandparents inheritance so we used that money as a down payment and to do some much needed renovations to the house. When we finally moved in we were in a good place financially. We had a great house with money still in the bank. We were happy.

It has been almost 6 months since we have been home owners and the time seems like it has just flew by. Since March we have made several improvements to our new home, some of which we knew about going into it and some we didn’t. When the weather started to turn hot and humid as Atlanta normally does come summer, we noticed that our upstairs bedrooms and closet never seemed to cool down the way they should. I didn’t want to believe we had an issue with our air conditioning, so I put off calling the repair crew as long as possible. Now, we got extremely lucky these first couple of months of owning our first home. The air conditioning needed a new compressor and that was looking to cost over $1500, but our awesome real estate agent David Willard bought us a home warranty on the day we closed on the house as a wedding gift. The warranty covered the entire thing except for a $200 deductible. It was incredibly lucky and we knew it.

The warranty came in handy one other time when our water heater valve was leaking. Only a $50 deducible covered that small fix. Oh, and before the compressor was replace we spent $50 on a deductible for a guy to come replace a non-working thermostat. As you can see, things are starting to add up. We just had our new kitchen table delivered from Room Togo which is just what we needed. It fills a huge hole we had in our main living area and it was something we were planning to buy the moment we moved in. Another expense. The list of things we need to improve or fix grows by the day. Priscilla and I are both somewhat perfectionists and we need to have things a certain way. Because of this I’m sure the list will ever go away.

I love our new home. It is everything I have ever wanted in a house. It is expensive though. Very expensive. I have never been so aware of my finances as I am now. Credit Cards are the devil but they are saving my ass right now. I know things will settle down and my debt will recess, but until then I am watching every bill and pinching every penny. I guess it is good for me. I figured I would eventually have to lean on my credit one day. Living without debt is unrealistic, but I tried as long as I could. It’s a helpless feeling owing money you don’t have. I don’t like it. Not at all. But again I love my house and it’s worth every penny.

My wife Priscilla doesn’t cook.  She never has and I don’t think she ever would have either.  That is until about a month ago when we both decided to trade off days during the week when we both cook dinner.  Not a Fast Food pick up order or a pizza delivery guy.  A real home cooked meal.   Now, cooking a meal at home may seem simple to some people, but to Priscilla, cooking is a really, really big challenge.

Priscilla can clean and organise and even do yard work with all the confidence in the world.  She can take a messy closet and turn it into a rainbow of organised shirts, undershirts, button downed shirts, dress shirts and suits all in order and all color coordinated.  Don’t get in her way when she is in her “”clean mode”.  She is like a runaway train.  She will clean the house til you can eat off the kitchen floor.  I can’t even take a shower two days after she cleans cause it will dirty the tile.  (just a joke there)  She will spend hours pulling every weed in the yard after she mows and edges the grass.  It’s incredible how meticulous she can get over some of the smallest things.

Well, as domesticated as she sounds, she has never been a chef.  Apparently she has never cooked in her life.  Ever.  I, on the other hand, was a line cook in a restaurant for 5 years as I made my way through college, so I know my way around the kitchen.  Now I have always been proud of my cooking ability and have always cooked for myself and then for Priscilla when we started to date and eventually got married.  I didn’t mind then and I don’t mind now but I do want Priscilla to learn how to cook so she can appreciate the world of the Culinary Arts and try new and exciting foods.

Priscilla has always been a picky eater.  Ever since I have known her she has been very particular about what she orders off a menu and what restaurant she attends.  She is usually not  ”in the mood” for anything other than chicken fingers and quesadillas.  She has her moments of being open minded about what she eats, but most of the time she just isn’t feeling it.  The idea of having us both cook opens up the idea of making new foods and trying new things we normally wouldn’t want.  We are letting the other person choose the meal and make it the way they like.  The main thing I wanted wanted to achieve for us both was to appreciate these meals because it took time and effort to create them.

Priscilla was all for it.  She knows she is a picky eater and wanted to learn how to cook.  I would be there to help and she would be there to help me too.  So far the meals ranged from Polenta to frozen chicken fingers.  All in all, we have leanred a lot.  Eventually I want us to take some cooking classes and learn even more.  I want to try new things and cook new vegtables I now consider weird or gross.  Eggplant?  Not sure if that is good or not but I want to try it out.  Priscilla has eaten everythign I have made and cooked up some excellent things herself.  The Pulled Pork was some of the best I have ever had.

So I bought a new house so I live in a new spot.  New spot.  New Commute.  Now when I was looking at houses the location was a huge deal for me.  Not so much for Priscilla, but she considered it.  I had to make sure where we were made sense for both of us now and in the long term.  Obviously location in Atlanta effected the price significantly so when looking I limited our search to only the convenient locations.  

Atlanta is a big city.  There are a lot of choices on neighborhoods and communities to live in.  But not all of them made sense for us.  Before we bought our house we rented in a condo in Vinings.  We love Vinings and the area around it.  We didn’t want to go far so Smyrna was an obvious choice. Smyrna is located just outside of Vinings and just outside the perimeter of Atlanta.  Yep OTP.  Though Smyrna is not the hippest neighborhood in Altanta, it is close to the city and it is reasonably priced.  Because of this, there are a ton of young families that call Smyrna home.  It may not have the party atmosphere of Brookhaven, but it does have new houses that are affordable.

Our new house is located on the corner of Atlanta Road and Spring Road. It is the heart of Smyrna and is located just a block from the Smyrna Market Village. My office is in midtown off Northside Drive right across from Six Feet Under. My commute from Vinnings, even though it was only three miles from our new house, was a lot better and quicker. It was more convenient because it was located so close to the freeway which made it a quick 10 minutes to work. Now with living in Smyrna, I am a good ten minutes from the freeway and the same 10 minutes from there. Because of this, I take the back roads.

A straight shot down Atlanta road takes you to Chattahoochee Road which then hits Howell Mill. My office is on 11th Street which is right off of Howell Mill. It clocks in at about 15 to 20 minutes but with no freeways.  The trip is painless on most days.  Some are worse than others, but there is very little traffic and never any cops or accidents.  This mostly just means that the commute is mostly the same day to day.  

The only thing I would have to say is a deciding factor is the bridge that crosses the Chattahoochee on Atlanta road next to the Water plant.  From what I have heard, the bridge has always been two lanes.  It has always taken Atlanta road from 4 lanes to 2.  Who planned this city anyway?  The traffic is pretty much the same everyday.  Easier in the afternoons, but it still sucks.  The light has five roads coming together which makes the light extremely long anyway, then add that it’s backed up a half mile.  It takes me at least ten minutes just to get through the light.  When it is done, my commute will improve immensely.

Overall I love my new commute.  It is quick and safe and isn’t through a ghetto.  My new commute is only one of the great new things I get with living in our new house.  Now lets just hope that Indigo doesn’t move to Kennesaw.

So recently I have gotten married and bought a house with my wife Priscilla.  It has been two weeks since we have moved into  out new investment and already I am starting to worry about the thing falling to the ground.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but considering the amount of money invested in such a thing, I stand to loose quite a bit if the house decides to up and fall over.  It just one of those things I have to get used to.  One of the things that makes you a Grownup.

Getting married for me was a no-brainer.  Priscilla and I had been dating four years and I loved her.  It wasn’t until after the engagement, the parties, the preparation, the rehearsal, the wedding, the reception, the honeymoon, and everything else, that I could really sit back and realize, ” Damn… I’m married now.  I’m a grown up.”  

Recently I have noticed that there are some people out there in the world that thrive on growing up fast.  I know several people that get married young and start having kids young.  Almost like they are running to be part of the group they call “Grownup”.  I, on the other hand, was not in that group.  Moving to Atlanta at age 19 was partially a cry for independence.  I wanted to party and not have to worry about it.  I wanted to have fun and be a kid on the loose.  I ended up growing up faster then I could ever imagine.  

That being said, I still was in no rush to be a grownup.  I did things as they would come to me in my life.  I met Priscilla when I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship.  At a point in my life when I was tired of trying to be nice, honest guy, I met Priscilla and she was the nice and honest girl.  It was meant to be I guess.

Now, honestly,  getting married, in my eyes, was not the final indication that I had turned to the grownups.  Priscilla and I have several friends that have no kids and party like rock stars and enjoy an awesome, young, independent life without children.  To me, they met their soul mate but never really wanted to reach that label of adult.  I have all the respect for them and am inspired by their lifestyle,  (That’s right Alex and Jan, I am talking about you two.) but I think that I am going to have a couple of kids in my future.

Priscilla and I decided to buy a house before the wedding even happened.  We actually considered buying before the wedding, but, after the wedding planning started, we knew that was not going to happen.  One thing at a time.  It always seems to be that: One thing at a time.  And that is how time passes so fast.  You finish one thing then on to the next.  After the wedding we started the process of buying a house.  We looked, found one, and bought it.  One step at a time.  Now, as the dust is finally settling, I look back and say,”Damn, I have a house now.  I have a wife.  I’m only 27 years old, but damn I feel like I’m all grown up.  Or maybe I feel like I’m a kid with a house and a wife.  Either way, I’ve taken one more step in being an adult.

The next step in the series of events that make up life is children.  (Mom, don’t get too excited yet.)  It is the final step into “Grownupdome”  It marks the fact that the little person you brought into the world looks to you as a “Grownup”.  And as they should.  You are the ones taking care of them.  Plus you are about 5 feet taller then them. Kids for me and Priscilla are in the future.  We just don’t know how are into the future they are.  Like I said before.  One step at a time.  What’s the next step again?

We closed on our house on February 24th 2009 at 12:00.  The events that lead up to that day were littered with fear, anger, frustration, stress, and excitement.  You see, after the official acceptance of the offer we had three weeks of Due Diligence and Financial Contingency.  What this means is that we had three weeks to get financed, get appraised, get inspected and make a decision.  During this period, we could walk away for any reason at all.  So we had a lot of decisions to make.  But, in the beginning, it was a waiting game.  We had to wait on our Mortgage Broker and our Realtor to set up our appraisal and inspection and get us financing asap.  Fortunately this was the least of our worries as the appointments were made for early the next week.

We didn’t say much to the appraiser, but the inspector took us on a quick tour of our new home pointing out all the imperfections along the way.  From the beginning, I was nervous that Priscilla would find something to make her change her mind as I knew that inspectors are paid to find something wrong.  That wasn’t the case though and she was surprisingly accepting about the homes tiny faults.  They were minor though.  A few boards that needed to be replaced.  A leaky pressure valve.  Some other little minor things, but nothing to keep us from closing on our new home.

Next we had to wait on the finances.  At the moment we had an acceptance letter James Willard was in contact with us requesting a number of documents including proof of employment, credit checks, proof of funds, etc., etc.  After that it was in someone else’s hands.  Mostly the Banks as they have a list of potential mortgages and they were not going to even get to ours for more than a week.  We waited, but I wasn’t too worried.  This market wants buyers like us and we fit all the requirements.  Plus we had the money and credit.  We waited.

Closing was on Friday, so we decided to do a final walk through on the Monday before.  Everything was looking perfect.  That was about to change.  

Quick back story on the house:  There was a lady living in the house that was not the true owner.  She was renting the house from a young guy that bought the house in 2008.  The details from there get a little cloudy, but all I know was that she did not want to move out.  From what I can gather, she had been doing small renovations throughout the house since she had lived there.  I am not sure why a renter would spend the money to renovate a house they do not own, but, as far as I know, she was responsible for a the dishwasher, the carpet, the unpainted crown molding throughout the kitchen, the updated thermostats, and alarm system, to name a few.  She did these things thinking she would be buying the house.  I guess.  We found out she had lost her job and ran out of funds.  All in all, she was not happy about loosing the home.  OK end of back story.

Our walk through was interesting from the start as when we walked in we heard noises from the upstairs.  Not wanting to freak anyone out, we talked loudly to make sure they knew we were here.  A young African American man came down the stairs and said all of three words to us.  Our Realtor David Willard asked if his mother was home and that we had an appointment to see the house.  That is when we noticed some things.  A broken marble fireplace corner, a broken baluster, and a few ten inch gashes on the stairway wall.  These were things that were new and the boy confirmed that.  We also noticed the alarm system and the thermostats had been yanked off the walls throughout the house leaving large holes in the drywall.  It was not pretty.  As we were leaving the lady living in the house came home and as she walked in the door she threw her hands up in disgust.  Unaware why we were there, she was pissed.

We didn’t know just how pissed til a couple days later.

I get a call from David Willard stating that they would offer $500 as compensation from the new damages, but there was a kicker.  The Lady had taken a key to the front of the super nice dishwasher and scratched up the whole front.  We were not sure just why she did it, but we assumed it was out of spite.  This lady was growing more annoying by the hour.  After I had agreed to the terms and a few hours later, I got a call from David that she has done damage to the dishwasher and that it may not work.  Now, let me remind you, this was a “short sale.”  The seller was broke and had now way of compensating us for the new damages.  The $500 was the limit.  Our only choice was to completely back out, and David seemed to think that they would just let it happen if that is what we decided.  In other words they would call our bluff and let the house go into foreclosure.  He seemed to think we had no other choice but to let it ride out and take what we get.  We were stressed and confused and pissed.  We let it ride out.

The next day the owner decided to replace the thermostats and try to fix the dishwasher before we moved in.  We were pleasantly surprised.  By this time he had kicked the Lady that was renting out of the house and changed the locks.  She had no more overnight privileges.  The only thing was that when we signed he was going to put the old locks back on.  Crazy Lady had the keys to the old locks.  First chore and expense in our new house was a set of new locks throughout. (but that’s for the next blog entry)  We found out the dishwasher was not broken at all.  It was disconnected because the Lady tried to take it!!  We couldn’t believe it.  But really we could.  She was nuts.  But is didn’t matter.  We were happy with our functioning dishwasher.  When we signed the papers, we were content and convinced this was the house we wanted. 

We are officially home owners.