We Did It! We Signed a Purchase Agreement for our brand new home.

After months of online window shopping on Redfin and Zillow, we decided to pull the trigger and go with our homebuying dream scenario: Purchase and build a new construction home. A townhome to be exact. As someone who will be buying a house for the first time, a newly built one seems intimidating. Some initial thoughts crept into our minds... "Can we afford this? Will our family and friends think we're crazy? Where do we start?"

There's a new townhome community in Maryland and we decided on Ryan Home's biggest model in the community, the Strauss. Our early projection during our window shopping phase had us purchasing their smallest model, the Hepburn. We played with all sorts of mortgage calculators and determining what-if scenarios for home prices and interest rates. We exhausted ourselves to the point where we determined that our dream home would not be achievable, and settling on the more practical model was the only option we had... at least until we met the sales representative.

Of course he'll try to upsell us and have us buy a more expensive model. And to some degree, it worked! But the decision was based on following our dreams at the cost of tightening the budget belt. The sales rep plugged in our financial numbers and we passed the first step: Our Debt-to-Income (DTI), Front, and Back-end ratios all came up good! We put down a deposit and slapped a SOLD sticker on the sign at the front of our newly claimed lot.

Next step, the loan application appointment with our loan officer. Probably the most nerve wrecking part so far. This is where we get a real estimate on our monthly payment and see where we stand financially.