We Bought A House!

[image: A photo of me, the top of a champagne bottle, my dog Potato, and Jackson, who is holding a house key, in front of our new home!]

On May 13th, we wore our masks into the escrow office and signed 1,342,678 pages with a sanitized pen. We left with a single key to our first home. We ordered burgers from Joyland and called utilities companies getting everything set up in our name. We drove to the house, unlocked the door, popped some champagne, and sat on the floor, sipping and dreaming about what we’d put on the walls, who we’d have dinner with on the porch, whether this might be where we bring children home from the hospital.

We’ve been in this process since April 8th when we put in an offer; I was dreadfully sick and in and out of the hospital for the entire month of April. Home dreams kept me powered through finals while sick. It’s a joy to be able to actually share this news!

So this is home now.

I want to be super transparent about something that I think can be unnecessarily taboo: buying a home is a financially burdensome thing to accomplish. This is particularly true for our generation (#millennials, ya know?) and when you have limited income (two doc students in one house means we’re on a budget). We absolutely could not have done this without the generosity and kindness of our family. We are grateful to have people who could support us in transitioning from rent to real estate in order to build our equity while we complete our degrees. This is a privilege and I hope to someday be in the position to help someone else who otherwise would be renting make the same move. We are so, so grateful for you, familia!

We had an awesome realtor, Adam Blevens, and an amazing loan officer (and old friend), Josh Jeans. We highly recommend them if you’re in the Nashville area and you want real people (not a distant company) who prioritize what you prioritize and help make the process as smooth and stable as possible. Thanks you two! (And congrats to Adam and his family who welcomed their second baby girl the week after we closed!)

Here are a few photos for now. We will be doing quite a bit of work in terms of painting and redesigning a few things (knocking out a wall?). so stay tuned!

[four images: first, a photo of the exterior of our house which is one-story and blue-grey; second, a photo of the kitchen with white cabinets; third, a photo of the main bedroom, with a ceiling fan, a queen size bed and two nightstands; fourth, a photo of the exterior of the back of our house, which has a porch the width of the house]