It happens all the time on home buying TV shows. You walk into a house and angels sing, the light is shining perfectly on the stainless steel appliances, it smells of fresh baked cookies, and you instantly know it’s THE ONE.

Well buying our forever home didn’t quite go that way.

It was almost picture perfect. If picture perfect meant buying a home or PCSing just 3 hours away, uprooting your special needs son from the school he adores and your high-school aged daughters not graduating with their friends all in only five weeks.

Yikes!

If you have ever had to make the choice of buying a home, or a short distance PCS, you know exactly where our minds were. 

We never thought about our forever being in New Jersey. A warm, sunny (no snow) location like Florida was always going to be where we returned for retirement and buying our home. 

The home buying process was simple enough, we used the VA loan and we knew what to expect, as it was not our first house purchase. We own another house that is an investment property, but this was going to be OUR home. Where our kid’s will go out into the world from, get married from, where one day grandchildren will visit us.

It will be the very first time we put “roots” down in one location.

The hunt began once we made the decision that my Senior NCO husband would GEO-Bachelor for the very first time in his career. The inventory was next to nonexistent, and that made our search much harder. Making sure to stay in the same school district, 4 or 5 bedrooms with space for everyone to spread out and within our desired budget was not an easy task for our incredible realtor in South Jersey at the time.

There were plenty of “Mini-Mansions” on the market, tons of condos and townhouses but THE ONE just wasn’t there. The day came where it was getting dangerously close to the realization that buying a home at our current duty station just wasn’t going to happen until around 11pm one Thursday night.

I got a ping in my phone of a new listing. On paper, it had everything we needed and the price PERECT! We called up our realtor bright and early Friday morning, she was on vacation with her family we pleaded if there was anyone in the office who could tour the property with us.

We waited on pins & needles and on Saturday morning, we walked into the perfect home for us. Not too big, not too small just an amazing 2200 square foot (newly updated) split-level with 5 bedrooms, 1 ½ baths (with room to expand) on almost ½ an acre with a basketball court in the center of a cul-de-sac……

There was no question this was the ONE.

Tina and her children enjoy the front porch of their forever home

We put in an offer while we were still at the house, and submitted it. Now we had to wait until Monday. The waiting was agony. We knew other people toured the house after us and we were so worried our offer wasn’t strong enough. Not to mention there was nothing else on the market and we had to be out of our rental in less than 30 days.

Monday morning came and with a phone call…. and we got it!

We got the ONE, the ONE where my husband walked in and said “I like it”.  if you knew him you would know that’s complete and total excitement for him. Now the clock started. Our realtor told us she has never had a home close in under 30 days using the VA loan.

Well I always say our home was meant to be because we closed in a record 27 days!  My husband reported to his new assignment the week prior so closing was up to me. I brought our eldest son and my mom for support.

Finally, I signed the last document and the keys were in my hands and something I never expected to happen happened, I burst into tears. I was shocked.  I don’t know if it was all the emotions of realization that this was OUR home or that my husband wasn’t there or that I was just happy but the waterworks flowed almost uncontrollably to where it was funny.

After closing and my mom went home, I went back to our rental and brought all our kids over to OUR forever home. For weeks after we moved in, I still couldn’t believe it.

THE ONE was in a place we had least expected it to be.

 My husband and I never intended to buy a home in New Jersey, we never even contemplated that finding the ONE would be such a wild ride, and we never even imagined the sheer amount of happiness, laughter and love it has brought us and we hope continually will bring us for many years to come.

* To read more from Tina, visit her on our Band of Bloggers page.

*To learn more about VA loans when buying a home, visit USAA

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