At the beginning of the year we moved into our new home - our first ever home! We had been renting apartments for the past 7 years, and finally (after a year of living with my parents) we found our spot. It’s a charming heritage home built in the early 1900’s, “heritage” by our West Coast Canadian standards.
The story of how it came to be is a good one.
We had been surveying the market and looking at listings for about a year, living with my parents to save money (thank you parents!), and feeling extremely unsure of what the future held for our family (if you know the Vancouver real estate market, then you know).
Before moving in with them we gave ourselves the year to save up and hopefully find something. We knew living with them wasn’t a long term plan, especially as a family of three with another one joining in February. If after a year of searching we didn’t find something, then our plan was to continue to rent and save.
We were going to begin our ‘IRL’ search in October, and in September I started to look at houses I wanted to go look at. A beautiful home that fit the description of what we were looking for came up on my search, but it was a little out of our price range. I noted it incase it came down in price and moved on. A couple weeks later, that same house dropped pretty significantly in price which put it right back on my radar.
”Just for fun” I convinced my husband to come and see a few open houses together one weekend, this house included.
As I had learned not to get attached to houses, I had low expectations before going in. It had a ton of curb appeal, and when I walked inside for the first time I remember being very pleasantly surprised. It was kept in immaculate condition for an old home, with big antique windows in every room (my favourite feature!). It was cosy, perfect for a small family. And the best part - a glorious english style garden in the back, full of wild flowers growing.
Neither of us expected to love a house that much - let alone the first one we walked into. It ticked all the boxes, and we could really envision ourselves in it. We put an offer on it a week later, did a bit of negotiating and then woke up one morning with a complete shock to find out the owners had accepted our offer. I’ll never forget that feeling. The best part is that the entire process felt so simple and stress free! Completely opposite to how I imagined buying a house would be like (after hearing many of our friends experiences in our city). I knew the entire time that God’s hand was in it. I felt such peace and assurance that he was answering our prayers and that we needed to trust him, and move forward.
We welcomed our second son James in February, and it officially became our home.
It has been a place of rest and safety for our family during this challenging season, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
