As I newlywed, I loved city apartment living but my biggest dream was to own a home. I grew up in an apartment and was envious of my cousins, who all lived in sprawling homes with their own bedrooms, large backyards, and finished basements. I’d spend summers with my cousin in Staten Island, visiting neighbors (and their swimming pools!), walking in the parks and playing with her dog. Coming home always made me sad and I vowed to one day raise my own children in a house.
When I got pregnant in 2002, Chris and I decided that while our big one bedroom apartment in Queens, NY would be a great investment, our little girl needed a home to call her own. We wanted neighbors that would look out for our kids, a yard to play in and years to debate putting in a pool or owning a dog. Home ownership was our big family dream!
The problem was we had no idea where to start, other than knowing we couldn’t afford to buy a home where we currently lived – or the taxes of the communities around us. And we didn’t want something too old that would entail a lot of work since neither of us was handy. We decided to move to Pennsylvania, near my sister, since it was in our budget and there were lots of new homes to choose from that were affordable and well maintained.
We created our own must have list:
- Near transportation so my husband could commute to work.
- Have a backyard and 3 bedrooms.
- Lots of families on the block.
- In a good school district.
We found a house that we fell in love with and we finalized the deal with a friend who advised on the financial issues. We had a ton of questions for her because we didn’t have a lot of money to put down. Our list of “what if’s” was long:
- How can we qualify for a mortgage with a low down payment?
- What sort of fees will be involved on top of our mortgage payments?
- What happens if the mortgage rates go up – or what should I do if they go down?
- And because I was moving to Pennsylvania: What the heck is radon and how much will it cost if the home has it? (Thankfully, this was not a problem!)
Being new at all this legal stuff and trusting a new friend, we made a lot of mistakes but I’m happy to say that our first house worked out just fine. Both our girls were born there and it holds a special sunny place in my heart even though it didn’t last long.
A few years later when we needed to relocate, our second home was found, researched and built using Google and the word of the builder. We would have saved ourselves a lot of stress if only we had a go-to resource we could trust for information. Building a home from the ground up involved so many questions that we hardly knew where to begin. And with that, all kinds of mistakes came – like when we hired a painter for our master suite, who told us the sight lines of whole room were crooked!
Most of the answers we sought came from the builders themselves and while they were mostly trustworthy, we noticed that as the development progressed the visible quality of the homes suffered. We learned our first valuable lesson in home building: build your home at the beginning of a new development rather than near the end when they are doing faster, lower quality work.
Nearly 10 years later, we now live in what I believe will remain our permanent home. Home ownership means a lot to us! Our school, church, neighbors, friends – even our local “cupcake lady” fits us to a “T”! I totally love my town, right down to its unique name, its mix of ex-New Yorkers and locals, and the way it borders “trendy” even when it’s still so family-oriented. And after all, this is the home where:
We summered to our heart’s content on sunny days …
We learned to put ourselves to bed or the nearest couch at at least …
We waited in eager anticipation for Halloween …
We learned to play well with each other …
We eagerly awaited Christmas to arrive….
And then longed for the sunny days of spring all over again!
Since our girls have special needs, we know they will live with us a long time and soon we will be planning how we can make this home a place that can grow with them.
As we save up for that day when we might turn our unfinished basement into the girls’ apartment, everything we learned will help us make smart choices but we still have a lot more questions.
Because there’s nothing as great as a sunny day in your own backyard!
