Offer accepted

We're been looking for a house for more than two years and, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, found home in our backyard... sort of. We made an offer to the owner of the house two doors down, and when they sent us a reasonable counter-offer, we accepted! That was earlier in the week, and I felt bewildered.

I don't feel like a homeowner yet, since the deal won't close until mid-July. However, after viewing well over a hundred houses and making six offers prior to this one, we're ready to settle in!

This weekend, we went to a "Naturescaping" tour of yards. The tour wasn't great, but we got some good ideas for how to tear out lawn and replace it with native plants and water-friendly landscaping.

Our next step is to create a plan for renovating the place, and a budget to go with it. We learned this weekend that first-time home buyers using FHA loans (like us) can get their $8,000 tax credit earlier! That's good news for us.