We bought a home and now what

By now, you, my audience knows that we moved to Tampa and bought a home. It was the quickest decision and I am still processing it all. This blog post is a full chronicle of that journey and some major truth-telling moments. So yeah, we bought a home, and now what….

Why we decided to move

It was always our dream to leave the DC and Maryland areas. We knew it was not our forever place but we really did not know where we wanted to reside. Jermaine and I both wanted a softer life, warmer temps, and lower cost of living and were back and forth on Texas or Florida. I was more sold on Texas because all the homes I was seeing were more my style and he liked Florida.

It was December 2021 and we were visiting my mom in Florida for Christmas and we just both agreed Florida was it. But deciding was only the beginning. We got back to Maryland in early January and found out that our landlord needed to sell the home we were renting. For us, it was a sign from a higher power that we had to make some moves and stop being so stagnant.

But for 1.5 months we remained stagnant. It was right after Valentine’s Day that my cousin Stanley knocked sense into us about calling a lender to see our approval amounts. That was the scary part for J and I. We both worked hard to get out of debt and raise our credit scores but still were imprisoned by our “broke” mindset.

But that night, I filled something out with Rocket mortgage and spoke with a lender. We did not end up going with Rocket mortgage because they truly were unprofessional and disorganized but it was a great starting point for us to better understand our approval process.

Honest moment, I worked for Quicken Loans for 5 years in the early 2000s and it was a great experience. As a consumer in 2022, I would never recommend them based on my experience.

We bought a house and now what… our location choice

We briefly visited the Fishhawk area of Tampa and LOVED it. It was super family-friendly and had a small-town charm. We both agreed THIS WAS IT!

But Tampa real estate had other plans for us. But this is how we initially decided that the Tampa Bay area would be our new home.

Our Realtor and Mortgage Lender Process

My co-worker Madison had moved to Tampa a year prior and purchased a house. She recommended her realtor and I text her immediately. Anna was UNBELIEVABLY knowledgeable not only about the area but on what we needed to do.I told the realtor, Anna, about our timeline (end of May) and our house preferences. I spoke with her before getting approval so told her we were looking at around 300k. Being a Tampa native, she gave us the best insight on locations and homes. She was also such a calming force and VERY honest on some of our decisions and explained WHY it would not benefit us in the long run. Once we got our approval, that opened us up to way more homes. We never thought about a new build because we did not think we could honestly afford anything good. But lo and behold we probably could have gotten our dream house– if it had been available. (more on that).

Anna recommended a mortgage lender named Ben to us and he was a God-send. I sincerely will refer these two to ANYONE who is looking in this area because oh-wee they are EXCELLENT. Ben took the time to walk us through the entire process, asked for our documents, and made sure we would have a full conditional approval so we could start looking with confidence. Even though I was a mortgage lender in a previous life, he made it even more simple and addressed all of our concerns. I am still in awe of how SIMPLE everything was because of his expertise, kindness, and tenacity.

Finding a Home

Once we got our approval we thought it was going to be so simple and fast. Oh, wee were we WRONG! Tampa is a hot market! It’s one of the top places for moving and we did not know until we started looking for homes. Long story short- there were no homes! Why? They were being bought up SO quickly! On top of that, builders were only releasing a few at a time and when we went in March to look, there were only 4 available new builds in the Tampa area cities we liked. Yes yall- 4!!!!

While the home we are currently in is not my dream home, it’s far from a starter home and we are sooooo grateful and honored to be its owner.

House Details

Without going into too much detail, we are so grateful to have bought a home that isnt necessarily a “starter” home as first-time homebuyers. We knew we wanted a ranch (one story) home with an open floor plan and 3 car garage. Like I previously mentioned there were not alot of homes available with our time-frame. We have a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, flex room, separate dining room 3200 sq ft home and very proud of it. Oh and best part…. I dont have to share a closet with Jermaine because we each have our own walk in. PRAISE the LORDT!

Since we are one of the very first in our community, we hope to builg a ton of equity. Our community will have close to 3000 homes once all phases are complete and we are the first of our model. Once we have hit at least 150k in equity, we are very interested in purchasing an MI Home. Those are my FAVES!!!

Building with Centex

Although our lender and realtor were amazing, I am still on the fence about our builder, Centex who is owned by Pulte. Another fun fact– I was recruited by Pulte right out of college. I was one of 8 out of 300 applicants that became one of their sales agents. Such a PHENOMENAL company and this was such a great job as a young adult.

I never thought that 20 years later, I would be purchasing one of their homes, and never thought the build quality would go down. While our house is nice and all, the workmanship is sloppy. I have an entire post coming soon going into detail about this.

Le sigh.

If you have made it this far, thank you so much for all the cheers, and support, and for reading this. This is/was a big deal for Jermaine and me and there is NO doubt that we would NOT be here if it weren’t for YOU liking my content, sharing it, and encouraging me. So this house is for yall too (just call before coming over heehee).

For more house content, please check out our house-to-home series and also on Pinterest. We are SLOWLY getting it together and will share far more soon.