Four years ago, I helped a sweet person named Jennifer buy her first home. She picked a townhome in Eastend, which is inside Man-O-War between Richmond Rd and Todds, not too far from the new Liberty Elementary. Of all the places she looked at before buying, here’s what ultimately tipped the scale in favor of this one.

• being minutes from her job downtown
• being close to the interstate, so she could visit with her out-0f-town family easily and often
• being right around the corner from all the shopping and dining in Hamburg
• a price that would mean having a mortgage payment less than what she’d spend to rent something similar
• not having to mess with a bunch of lawn mowing and exterior maintenance
• recent renovations, which meant she could move in all her cute furniture and decor and be settled quickly
• Eastend feels like a community—warm and welcoming

When Katie and I bought our first home, we went with a townhome. We were able to buy it under that 100K threshold, which was awesome, since we were newly married and recent grads.  We’ve moved on since then, but I’m so thankful we started with a townhome. Jennifer is like us. She’s ready to sell her first home. It’s been loved and enjoyed. And at $85,000? Geez…I’m thinking it’s going to sell pretty dang quickly. What do you think?

I hope you enjoy the photographs. I spent almost 2 hours out there shooting!

Every industry has its problems, and real estate is no exception. There’s a very small percentage of shady dealings. Fair enough. That’s going to happen in any sector of a free market. But I’m proud to be in this profession. I believe in the goodness of the people I work around.

Like Laura. I was up against her for a listing tonight. I told the sellers that they’d be in great hands either way—and meant it. Feels good to be able to say that, although admittedly, I did silently pump my fist high in the air later when they called to tell me they had chosen me. Ha!

Like Brad. He was the listing agent for a house my buyers made an offer on last night. It was on the market for one day. Beautiful ranch on a basement backing to  a golf course. My folks wanted it badly. We ended up being in a multiple offer situation because another agent in town had buyers making an offer on it, too. Brad handled being in the middle of the deal fairly, and ended up getting his sellers top dollar for the place, though not from my buyers unfortunately. Heart-breaking for them (and me), but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

It’s been busy this month for us all. Unexpectedly so. Could be that rates are stupid-low right now. Could be that folks are climbing down from the fences, if ever so cautiously. Heck, maybe it’s the lack of snow. But whatever is going on, it’s good to be back in the saddle after a fairly quiet end of 2011.

Nite!

-shaun

I worked as Ashlee’s buyers agent a few months ago as she was going through the home-buying process for the first time.  We negotiated a heck of a deal on a house that was perfect for her.  Close to work.  Awesome price.  Needed some cosmetic updates, but was otherwise really sound.  Awesome opportunity.  I’m so happy I got to be the one to help her.

She invited me over recently to see all the work she’d done to fix the place up.  It looked amazing!  She had put the most effort into paint and redoing the bathrooms.  Always worth the effort.  Those will be huge selling points in the future.  I told her that I’d be posting some before and after pics on this blog, and Ashlee was nice enough to put together a bit of a summary of what her first time home-buying experience was like.  Here it is!

When I started the ‘home buying’ process I wasn’t even sure I would end up buying. I casually talked to Shaun at a photoshoot that he was doing for my company and found out he was also a realtor. I had been renting a new place each year for the past four years and was looking for number five when he recommended I look into buying. I was only 22 years old at the time. I graduated from UK in May, 2009 and had only been working at my new job for about five months. Buying a house sounded WAY out of my league. Shaun pointed me in the right direction so I knew who to talk to about finding out how much I could afford and how to get a loan and all that fun financial stuff I knew nothing about.

Once I realized that I could afford to buy a small house for not much more than I was renting for, I called Shaun to ask what the next steps would be. I had no idea where to start looking or what I wanted. That same week, me and Shaun met up for a cup of the best coffee in town at Alf Alfa’s and he gave me the Clif’s Notes version of the buying process. He assured me that he would walk me through the search process and if I fell in love with something, he would walk me through the buying process but if I didn’t find anything or feel comfortable, I could always rent again – there was no pressure and no cost associated with looking.

So Shaun set me up on this client portal where I would get emails when new houses in my price range went on the market and for the next month or so I watched those closely, drove around and looked at places and asked Shaun a trillion questions. He worked with my crazy work schedule and went with me to look at multiple houses. He was totally honest with me about each one and helped me understand what kind of work I would need to put in to them so I could decide if I would be able to manage it – because I was mostly looking at ‘fixer-uppers’. I quickly realized that I knew what area of Lexington I wanted to be in and so we refocused our search and soon came across a little street off Richmond Road that I loved.

When the house I now call home went on the market, it was listed a little above my initial price range but I asked Shaun to go check it out for me and see if he thought it would be a good fit, because he knew what I wanted and what I could afford better than I did by this point and I couldn’t get away from work. He called me that day and said I HAD to see this place. The rest is history (and a bit of a blur). I was so excited when I saw the house and even though it was a little above the price I was initially looking for, I was not going to have to put much money into fixing it up so it was worth it to me. We put in an offer and went back and forth a few times with the seller. The next thing I know, I get a text from Shaun, “they accepted the offer. are you ready to be a homeowner?” (or something like that, haha)

Everything moved rather quickly after that. I honestly cant even tell you what all happened, it was so easy. Shaun walked me through everything, probably some things that a realtor should not have to remind you to do. But we had so much fun. I was not stressed about anything. I mean, we ate cupcakes at my closing when I signed on the dotted line.. Seriously! So less than a year after I graduated college, I moved into my new home! I have slowly done a little fixing up, tile floors and a fresh coat of paint, and I am LOVING it, and learning so much! I could not be happier with my place or the buying experience. There were no surprises or curveballs and it is now one of my fondest memories. Buying your first house is so crazy exciting; its a milestone in life. I feel so blessed- I even had a photographer to capture some of my memories for me

Pretty cool, right?  Feel free to check out the before and after pics!

Nice!  And there’s no way this story would be complete without sharing a pic of Ashlee in front of her new home—with Bruno.