Today is the 30th anniversary of our move into our first home. I know many here have bought and sold many homes, may have a 2nd home or may have rental properties. This was our first and only home purchase, we are still here and plan to stay.
In the spring of 1983 my DH was still in graduate school, graduating in May, 1983. I had surgery (gallbladder removal) in February and was off of work for 6 weeks. We had a solid down payment saved and as soon as I was able to do stairs we would spend our Sundays checking out Open Houses in areas that we were interested in.
DH did not have a job yet so we had no pressure to make a commitment to buy, we were truly "just shopping". This gave a us a chance to get to know what neighborhoods we liked, what type of house we liked and what price range we could afford. We were always honest with the Real Estate Agents about our situation.
Both of us had grown up in 2 story colonials so we gravitated to that style at first. We saw a few ranches but many were only 2 bedrooms and 1 bath. We toured some 1.5 story Cape Cod styles. I liked the idea of a 1.5 story but so many were just an open area upstairs, sometimes without a bathroom, some unfinshed or even worse, poorly finished. We found some that stated 2 bedrooms upstairs but you had to walk through one bedroom to get to the other bedroom. We learned a lot about what to look for and what to avoid. And we had a great time!
DH graduated in late May and a few weeks later found a good job in a nearby city. I think he was making $16,000! I was earning $18,500 in my 5th year as a staff accountant at a local company. Even though we both had income we planned to get a house that we could afford on just DH's salary, I wanted to be home with kids.
We found a house we really liked in a neighborhood that we loved. Four bedrooms, 2 full baths in a 1.5 story Cape Cod style built in 1955. Two bedrooms and a bath on each floor, fenced in yard, full basement, breakfast room in the kitchen. Asking price was $68,500 and our initial bid was $55,000. Finally negotiated to $60,000. Mortgage rates in 1983 were 12.375% (OMG!!!). We made a down payment of $15,000 and got a 30 year loan for $45,000.
On closing day I remember signing, initialing, more signing. We had a rough estimate of closing costs and I was surprised by all the things we had to pay for. Instead of including closing costs into the loan we kept our loan at $45,000 and I wrote a check for the closing costs. Ouch! We had enough, but I realized I had cut it closer than I wanted to.
A few years later mortgage rates went down and when they got to 9% we refinanced. A few years after that they dropped to 7% and we refinanced again. In the early 2000's the rates dropped so low that we wanted to refinance again but our mortgage company said they didn't do mortgages that small (I think we owed less than $20,000 by that time) so instead we got a HELOC at 3% and paid off the mortgage. After a few years with the HELOC the variable rate was back up to close to 7%. By that time we owed only about $14,000. I got a Capital One credit card offer for a no cost balance transfer at 2.99% for the first year and then dropping to 1.99% for the remaining time period, so we transferred the balance of our HELOC to Capital One. Yes, we paid off our house with a credit card! That Capital One card was paid off as quickly as possible, we had kids in college by then but I think we were done by 2008.
A couple of thoughts....
Best advice from my Dad - Get a 2 car garage. We did better than that, the house has a 2 car attached garage and the area above the garage is a large full height storage area with easy access from the upstairs hallway.
Best advice from DH's Dad - When we built a deck off the back he recommended that we build it at the height of the house, avoiding steps on the deck itself. That's what he had on his house and the steps took up space and were always a problem. He was right. We built a 14'x20' deck with a landing and 6 steps down to the lawn.
We ended up having 2 sons, in 1984 and 1987. As babies they were in the smaller downstairs bedroom then later moved to their own rooms upstairs. This worked out great because they each had their own rooms and shared the upstairs bathroom. If they set up toys or games or stuffed animals their things could stay that way without it being a hassle for us parents. It was a great kids zone.
Best feature I never expected to love - The clothes chute! The bathrooms are one above the other and there is a clothes chute in the wall that drops past both bathrooms and ends up in the laundry room in the basement.
Strangest feature we never used - All 4 bedrooms, the kitchen and the living room had a large built-in speaker in the wall. We suspect there was a music feed or intercom system included when the house was built, but we never found a place where this was controlled or accessed. As we redecorated each room, we removed the speaker and patched the hole.
Wish we would have #1 - Replaced the windows sooner! The original windows were single pane aluminum casements. Winters were awful, summers awful in the other direction. We did the large living room picture window first, later the dining room picture window but didn't complete the rest of the house until 2010 when DH retired.
Wish we would have #2 - Added Air Conditioning sooner! We didn't add this until 1993. The years with just fans were LOUD and uncomfortable. With casement windows we couldn't use regular window A/C units. In 1992 we went to a family reunion in Florida and stayed in a air conditioned condo for a week. After that I knew AC was a necessity that we deserved. We had it added on to our existing (original from 1955) forced air furnace. All that was replaced with high efficiency equipment in 2012.
Hard to believe it's been 30 years, in some ways it has just flown by. Many happy memories here, no regrets. Except maybe the wallpaper that I was so sure I would love forever and now I don't. This was a wonderful house for raising a family. Our area is fairly low cost of living and putting a 25% down payment meant that we could afford a mortgage on one income.
Life here has been very good.
In the spring of 1983 my DH was still in graduate school, graduating in May, 1983. I had surgery (gallbladder removal) in February and was off of work for 6 weeks. We had a solid down payment saved and as soon as I was able to do stairs we would spend our Sundays checking out Open Houses in areas that we were interested in.
DH did not have a job yet so we had no pressure to make a commitment to buy, we were truly "just shopping". This gave a us a chance to get to know what neighborhoods we liked, what type of house we liked and what price range we could afford. We were always honest with the Real Estate Agents about our situation.
Both of us had grown up in 2 story colonials so we gravitated to that style at first. We saw a few ranches but many were only 2 bedrooms and 1 bath. We toured some 1.5 story Cape Cod styles. I liked the idea of a 1.5 story but so many were just an open area upstairs, sometimes without a bathroom, some unfinshed or even worse, poorly finished. We found some that stated 2 bedrooms upstairs but you had to walk through one bedroom to get to the other bedroom. We learned a lot about what to look for and what to avoid. And we had a great time!
DH graduated in late May and a few weeks later found a good job in a nearby city. I think he was making $16,000! I was earning $18,500 in my 5th year as a staff accountant at a local company. Even though we both had income we planned to get a house that we could afford on just DH's salary, I wanted to be home with kids.
We found a house we really liked in a neighborhood that we loved. Four bedrooms, 2 full baths in a 1.5 story Cape Cod style built in 1955. Two bedrooms and a bath on each floor, fenced in yard, full basement, breakfast room in the kitchen. Asking price was $68,500 and our initial bid was $55,000. Finally negotiated to $60,000. Mortgage rates in 1983 were 12.375% (OMG!!!). We made a down payment of $15,000 and got a 30 year loan for $45,000.
On closing day I remember signing, initialing, more signing. We had a rough estimate of closing costs and I was surprised by all the things we had to pay for. Instead of including closing costs into the loan we kept our loan at $45,000 and I wrote a check for the closing costs. Ouch! We had enough, but I realized I had cut it closer than I wanted to.
A few years later mortgage rates went down and when they got to 9% we refinanced. A few years after that they dropped to 7% and we refinanced again. In the early 2000's the rates dropped so low that we wanted to refinance again but our mortgage company said they didn't do mortgages that small (I think we owed less than $20,000 by that time) so instead we got a HELOC at 3% and paid off the mortgage. After a few years with the HELOC the variable rate was back up to close to 7%. By that time we owed only about $14,000. I got a Capital One credit card offer for a no cost balance transfer at 2.99% for the first year and then dropping to 1.99% for the remaining time period, so we transferred the balance of our HELOC to Capital One. Yes, we paid off our house with a credit card! That Capital One card was paid off as quickly as possible, we had kids in college by then but I think we were done by 2008.
A couple of thoughts....
Best advice from my Dad - Get a 2 car garage. We did better than that, the house has a 2 car attached garage and the area above the garage is a large full height storage area with easy access from the upstairs hallway.
Best advice from DH's Dad - When we built a deck off the back he recommended that we build it at the height of the house, avoiding steps on the deck itself. That's what he had on his house and the steps took up space and were always a problem. He was right. We built a 14'x20' deck with a landing and 6 steps down to the lawn.
We ended up having 2 sons, in 1984 and 1987. As babies they were in the smaller downstairs bedroom then later moved to their own rooms upstairs. This worked out great because they each had their own rooms and shared the upstairs bathroom. If they set up toys or games or stuffed animals their things could stay that way without it being a hassle for us parents. It was a great kids zone.
Best feature I never expected to love - The clothes chute! The bathrooms are one above the other and there is a clothes chute in the wall that drops past both bathrooms and ends up in the laundry room in the basement.
Strangest feature we never used - All 4 bedrooms, the kitchen and the living room had a large built-in speaker in the wall. We suspect there was a music feed or intercom system included when the house was built, but we never found a place where this was controlled or accessed. As we redecorated each room, we removed the speaker and patched the hole.
Wish we would have #1 - Replaced the windows sooner! The original windows were single pane aluminum casements. Winters were awful, summers awful in the other direction. We did the large living room picture window first, later the dining room picture window but didn't complete the rest of the house until 2010 when DH retired.
Wish we would have #2 - Added Air Conditioning sooner! We didn't add this until 1993. The years with just fans were LOUD and uncomfortable. With casement windows we couldn't use regular window A/C units. In 1992 we went to a family reunion in Florida and stayed in a air conditioned condo for a week. After that I knew AC was a necessity that we deserved. We had it added on to our existing (original from 1955) forced air furnace. All that was replaced with high efficiency equipment in 2012.
Hard to believe it's been 30 years, in some ways it has just flown by. Many happy memories here, no regrets. Except maybe the wallpaper that I was so sure I would love forever and now I don't. This was a wonderful house for raising a family. Our area is fairly low cost of living and putting a 25% down payment meant that we could afford a mortgage on one income.
Life here has been very good.
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