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| I certainly can't do everyday, but I have to try to post each week, choosing a topic randomly from this list. |
So, since I mentioned about our new house, I might as well start my story this year with it.
We bought our house in November 2018, as a first time home owner. When we got married in 2012, because of our financial situation, we were only able to afford living in a studio in a basement in the Bronx, owned by someone we knew from our church. She graciously let us stay there with a very low rent. Until 2017, when her granddaughter came to New York, and wanted to stay there, we then found a new slightly bigger place (and of course money, too! :)) in Brooklyn. Moving was not something I really enjoyed doing. Ever since I came to the US, about 20 years ago, I had moved from one borough to another, around the metropolitan area, Long Island, and New Jersey .... probably about 10 times. But, living in the Bronx was the longest.
Ever since we moved to Brooklyn, where we had to pay rent twice as much, I knew we had to start looking to buy a house soon. However, my husband just graduated that time, and started working full time only for a month. I was told it took about 2 years or more after we both started working full time to be able to get a mortgage approval. So, I could only pray, save a little at a time, and wait for God's time.
It was last summer, when I somehow found encouragement to start applying for pre-approval, tho I didn't put too much hope in it. However, we did get approved within the next 24 hours, for the amount that we were expecting. It was a green light for us to start with our house hunting.
My husband, tirelessly, kept on checking on houses for sale, and at the same time learning about all areas in New Jersey - where I somehow set my heart in, ever since the beginning. We, thankfully, also found a great real estate broker, John Laico, who very patiently gave us tours and inputs for each houses we visited. I actually felt very bad for making him wait for us for 30 mins because of my miscalculation in our timing. And it didn't just happen once :( But he never once failed to give us his very best, even with a very last minute notice. I remembered we contacted him on Friday late afternoon before a long weekend, with a list of many houses we wanted to see on that following Saturday. And he responded so quickly with a YES. He was very understanding to our situation, because of the distance and our work schedules, Saturday was the only day we could do each week to see houses.
After checking out about 6 houses a week for about 3 months, we then found this one, that both my husband and I love. It was not an easy task, tho at the beginning seemed kind of fun, but later on after seeing so many and didn't find anything, we both felt very exhausted and a bit discouraged. Because of our budget, many of those houses were not as we expected. Some needed lots of work, some had weird layout, some were not in a good location, some were too small, etc. We never thought we would find a house this quickly. As many said it would take about at least 6 months to find "the one".
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| This was taken in front of our first house after we closed that day. Also first snow in NY/NJ area this winter. |
Some projects also needed to get done within a week before we moved in. We painted the bedrooms and the kitchen cabinets ourselves during the Thanksgiving week. It was a quite busy week for us having to get all the painting jobs done, packing our belongings, and work. As I could not take any day off from work, My husband, however, got 2 days off for the Thanksgiving and black Friday. I remember, I even got mandated to work double shift the day before the Thanksgiving for someone who happened to call out sick, and I had to cover for her.
All in all, with God's grace, the moving went smoothly as it was planned. I sometimes still could not believe we already own a house now. There are many other things that we still have to do and learn along the way in this house, such as changing filters for the heater/AC, removing the carpet and installing hardwood floor on our bedroom, organizing our belongings, and most importantly time management that I am still struggling to be able to manage this house well.
It is only thru His mercy and grace we are what we are right now. May God use us and this house to bring us and others around us closer to Him, to bring glory to Him, and Him alone.
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