House hunting can be very daunting but super fun at the same time. Milton and I got engaged last fall and I moved in with him as soon as I got the chance. I moved into his 1 bedroom apartment just south of Downtown Austin (the perfect location). I can walk to Town Lake for a jog, go a couple of blocks to the shops on SoCo…everything is at our fingertips. However we are bursting at the seams! Every square inch of storage is being utilized, and we haven’t even brought our wedding gifts home yet! We’ve been working super hard to save up for a down payment on a house. Apartments can be nice because they aren’t up to you to maintain, but we we’re tired of throwing money towards something that we don’t own!

Our hunt started about a year ago online with popular real estate websites like Zillow and Trulia. You can filter your options by the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage and more! I also like that you can view crime rates for different areas. These websites gave us a really good idea of the current state of the market and helped us narrow down which areas we were most interested in.

We are very fortunate to have a real estate agent that we know personally. He is a good friend of Milton’s from college, so I felt that we could trust him to work hard in finding what we wanted in our first home. A 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom seemed like the right amount of space for us. Sqaure footage was the kicker though! In Austin, some 3/2 houses are squeezed into 1,200 sq ft! That’s not much bigger than our current apartment. During our first round of viewing homes (March of 2016) we looked at 3 or 4 in the same neighborhood. They were adorable craftsman homes, but they didn’t meet my storage requirements. My must-haves: master bathroom linen closet, sufficient kitchen cabinet space, pantry, extra linen closet, and decent master closet (duh). I also HAD to have double sinks in the master. Milton has a mustache that he has to trim rather often and I don’t need to see that hair when I brush my teeth.

Round 2 (or 3, who can remember) of home hunting: we found an adorable home with great wood tiling, but what I thought was a two car garage was not so. One garage was for the home behind us that didn’t have street access (in a master build community). HA! No thanks. On to the next one.

We took a break for about a month or so around the wedding. It was important to us to focus on our marriage and spend time with family and friends. As soon as we came back from the honeymoon our realtor had a brand new build ready for us to take a look at. It was love at first sight. Massive pantry, a half bath downstairs, storage galore, vaulted ceiling in the living space, and the perfect master bathroom.

I was quickly reminded of why I married Milton. He stepped up to the plate and worked with the builder to come down on the price and include more appliances. I didn’t have to lift a finger.

The best tip I can give is to look at as many homes as you can and take notes of what you like and don’t like about each property. I gave each home a nickname and took notes on my phone. Be sure to write down the listing price/price per square footage, year built, estimated taxes, and other related facts.

We closed on our home today, January 31st (happy birthday to me). I can’t wait to transition to a bigger space and start decorating and hosting!