2020
- March: Start Back with SYNERGIST
- Also March: COVID Happens we're inside and start aggressively paying off our debt to be able to save for a house.
2021
- September: We have our second baby Jordan.
- October: I paid off my student loans and can start throwing more money at saving for our next home.
2022
- October: We hit a savings milestone and feel we're finally ready to start reaching out to realtors and actually look at houses seriously instead of browsing open houses.
- November: After interviewing several candidates we find our agent by going through homes we like and seeing who actually ended up representing the parties on those transactions. We met one of the realtors we were interested in at her open house, she was great and we vibed well in person. Once we interviewed her we decided to move forward with her as our realtor and began looking at houses in December.
2023
- January: We put our first offer on a home in Four Corners area. At this point in the search, I had become fascinated with the Four Corners area due to it being close to the D.C. and major highways and in Montgomery County providing good schools for the kids. We ended up as runner ups on this home.
- July: We find out we're pregnant with baby #3 and start slowing down the housing search.
- December: We buy our Honda Odyssey since we'll now need a three row vehicle since we're soon to be a family of 5.
2024
- April: Madelyn is born
- July: Joy goes part-time which leads to less income but we now have more bandwidth to care for the kids.
- September: Second offer on home in Four Corners area is accepted. We go through inspection and something just doesn't feel right for me. Unfortunately though I waited until after the inspection deadline to have this realization. Yet still I persist and try to get out the contract, drama ensues with me telling my wife I'm sorry and praying that we can get our Earnest Money Deposit(EMD) back. Luckily the sellers decide to return the EMD. God Bless them!
With the EMD returned we pay off the minivan and pause the housing search for the foreseeable future.
After this my wife explained to me that my fixation on four corners had dominated the home search and I was being selfish and not a good listener.
2025
In 2025 after starting to recover from the failure to close on the accepted offer. I come to the realization that I need to sell my current Greenbelt house in order to comfortably afford the home that makes the most sense for our family. Prior to this point I'd been fixated on keeping my Greenbelt home due to my low mortgage and great rate(2.65) the home would cash flow.
- November: We pay off the remainder of Joy's student loans and are now debt free except for the mortgage.
- December: We start searching for realtors again this time knowing exactly what our weak areas are that we'll need a realtor to hold our hands through the process.
2026
- January: We pick our realtor Joie Ashworth . We had a great rapport with her during the interview process, she walked us through the whole process we'd be going through to sell our current home and buy our next home. She'd grown up in PG and sold home in PG plus had a lot of experience selling in Montgomery County as well so she was a perfect fit.
- March: We've now expanded our search and find a couple more suburban neighborhoods we love with the amount of rooms that will fit our family.
Bid 1: Falls flat it's a hotly contested house w/ 15+ offers.
Bid 2: Success we find a home in the same neighborhood as house one, walking distance to school, perfect bedroom layout upstairs, close to wifes work, private backyard and partially finished basement for kids to immediately go play in.
- April: Tax day we closed on our new home. 🥳