“The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.” — J.R.R. Tolkein
This rings true in my life. Change has been a constant theme for the last few weeks. On top of getting married and enjoying a two-week honeymoon to Florida, my husband, Tim, and I have been in the process of buying a house.
Our house hunt began shortly after we were engaged in February 2017. We knew we wanted to find a house that we could call ours, but we didn’t want to move too quickly because Tim needed to sell his house before we purchased one together. That didn’t stop me from looking at real estate listings.
I told Tim from the beginning I wanted to stay in Jasper County, if possible. I lived in a different county at my previous newspaper job. It worked at the time, however, I believe newspaper personnel stay better connected in the community they are covering if they also live in it.
I quickly found a house in which both Tim and I were interested. Even though Tim’s house wasn’t even listed yet, we wanted to check out the house for more details. That put us in contact with Shawn Preston of Iowa Realty. Even though we didn’t get to look at that first house, getting in touch with Shawn was an important step in our home buying process.
I waited a month before I contacted him again, and we actually met him and looked at the house. It wasn’t the right one, but it was nice to put a face with a name.
Over the course of the past year, Shawn showed us at least 30 houses. We looked at small two bedroom houses, large acreages and everything in between. Our goal was to find a house somewhere on the eastern edge of Jasper County, so Tim would have a shorter drive to work.
In all our stops, we never found one that checked all the boxes. At that point, we decided to turn our search closer to the City of Newton.
We were getting to the point where we were going to stop the house search for awhile and catch our breath. The right house was out there; we just needed to wait for it.
I had signed up for email alerts every time a new house was listed in our search area. We already had an appointment with Shawn when I saw a house that really caught my attention. I emailed him and asked to add it to the list for that night.
On March 6, we walked into the house that would become ours. It was on the edge of town, with easy access to Interstate 80. That was a must, considering Tim has to drive nearly an hour to work. It has three bedrooms, one and half baths, a two stall garage and a big yard. Despite not being the country home of our dreams, this house checked all the boxes for us. Even though it is in town, there is still plenty of space for all of Tim’s cars and motorized toys.
We took a second look on March 10 and made an offer that day. Two-months later we closed on the house and got the keys. It was an exciting day when we officially inked the deal.
Now Tim and I are in the process of moving, unpacking, organizing and hopefully eliminating things we don’t need.
We are trying to get the bulk of the organizing done in these first few weeks, so we can welcome home our cats and dogs as soon as possible. We already have their “rooms” set, and we are working to get their areas prepared in their new home.
Tim and I are making the house our own every day. We can’t wait until the work is done and the adventures continue on.
Contact Pam Pratt at
pampratt@newtondailynews.com