Closing Day!

It's closing day for our house woooooohooooo!  We are so giddy with excitement this morning.  The actual process of buying a home has not been that bad, finding a house was the longest and hardest part for us.  If you are thinking of buying a house but are leery about the process, here are a few tips we learned along the way of home ownership.  One - make sure your finances are in order, don't even start to consider it until you are out of debt and have good credit, you can read more about how we turned around our finances here.  Two - set a price point, after putting together our budget we decided on a price point that would give us the ideal monthly payment we felt comfortable with.  We actually qualified for a higher priced home but we just felt a little more comfortable looking at things priced lower.  Three - get a good team.  We were so blessed to have a wonderful friend who is a Mortgage banker who helped us along the way, she set us up with a great realtor who had the patience to deal with us as we looked at one beat up house after the other.  If you don't know anyone then I would suggest asking around, it's amazing the connections out there and having people on our side, wanting the best for us was priceless to us in our quest of owning a home.  And, finally Four - have patience, your perfect home (imperfect house) is out there just waiting for you to call it yours, don't get discouraged.  We have learned a lot through this process, not just about mortgages, loans and such but also about our faith.  God wants and desires to be part of every aspect of your life, to be Lord and Sustainer of each decision that you make, even the ones that wouldn't seem so important.  We truly felt God guiding us through our decision making while looking to buy a house.  God speaks clearly on giving and stewardship and we knew we needed to let Him be in charge of our finances.  He gave us a blessing in people who loved us and guided us through the rigorous process of home buying and gave us patience to wait on the perfect home.  It's amazing that the Creator, God wants and desires a personal relationship with us.  He is with us every step of the way.  What a blessing to think about first thing this morning, God is with us and He desires us.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them,  human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8:3-4