Proud (and exhausted) homeowners x2!!

This post is looooong overdue, but the last few weeks have been insanely hectic. I've been dragging my feet about writing this post because I'm just so freakin' tired all the time. August was a crazy but productive month. We closed on our second property, found tenants to lease our condo, moved out and cleaned up the condo in a whirlwind of a weekend, and moved (or at least dropped all our stuff in boxes all over the place) into our new home!

We are now officially landlords and legit real estate investors!

After many months stalking the MLS and even making a few offers sight-unseen, we finally achieved our goal to buy another piece of real estate. We are trying to buy at least one per year - let's see if we can keep it up!

I hesitated to mention this home purchase until after closing because you never know when a deal might fall through at the last second. This actually happened to us a few months ago, but it ended up working out to our benefit.  We were fully approved and a week away from closing on a cute downtown bungalow when the termite inspector literally told us "Don't buy this house." He looked at us like the house was about to fall down. We immediately backed out and lost some money from the inspections and appraisal. Disappointed and desperate to buy something, I was then on the home-buying rebound, ready to pounce on any listing I could afford. Luckily I had Dustin around to veto my interest in any less-than-stellar deals.

Finally in July we found a helluva deal on a 3/2 in the cozy Conway neighborhood, just south of downtown Orlando. Because we had already completed the underwriting process for the termite-infested house, we were fully approved (versus the typical pre-approved) for our mortgage, which made our offer on the house a slam dunk - much more attractive to the seller because we can close quickly.

It's a bank-owned home, so we were able to purchase it well below the price per square foot of other recent comparable sales in the area. The house is a solid 1960s home with real, original wood floors and updates to the rest of the interior (except a tacky green and yellow guest bathroom that does not deserve to be pictured). It's in a quiet, well-maintained area within the desirable Boone High School district... no, we are not planning on staying in this house THAT long - we just know that a house in a great school district will be an attractive rental or resale when we're ready to move out!

Here are some pics of the house:

Cute front porch

Huge living room

Updated but basic kitchen

Hey, pretty little house! You're mine!

Nice yard with lots of shade

Tiny master bathroom, but we'll make it work :(

TACKY guest bathroom - was the original owner an old Packers fan?!

It's 1,500 square feet, not including the huge laundry room, and has a carport and spacious backyard. After cramming into 1-bedroom condos for the last few years, we don't know what to do with all this space!

The house is in excellent condition overall, but it does need some work. We are anxiously awaiting our new windows (which are super expensive, BTW! waaah) so that we can finally close all of them properly and not run up the utility bill as our A/C works overtime during the hottest time of the year. Other than that we need some minor repairs here and there, and to give that hideous bathroom a modern makeover.

Oh, and we must keep lurking on Craigslist for furniture to fill all this empty space, since we spent all our cash on closing costs and windows!

I'll keep posting on the progress with the house and hope to be sharing some wedding plans soon... I promise to keep up on the blog more now that we're somewhat settled and finally have internet!