Hell froze over and we bought a house. Here’s how I changed my mind about renting forever

To say that our sudden decision to buy was out of left field and alarmingly fast would be an understatement. But you don’t make the biggest purchase of your life on accident.

So how did we get here?

Six months ago, we were dead set on renting for the foreseeable future — not because buying wasn’t an option but because our perceived benefits of renting outweighed those of homeownership.

We had a prime central location in a neighborhood we couldn’t afford to buy into otherwise. We had the freedom and flexibility to uproot without an ordeal. We had someone on call to fix broken appliances and other headaches. And we had a bunch of cash sitting around. It wasn’t a bad place for a young couple to be.

But we were still just curious enough about buying (and were watching just enough HGTV, the home-buying gateway drug) to keep an open mind even after declaring a pro-rent stance.

So when a house we could actually afford went up for sale in our overpriced neighborhood, we casually inquired about it and fell down a home-buying rabbit hole.

Here’s what we learned as impromptu first-time homebuyers.

There’s no such thing as a casual real estate search.

That house down the street from our rental was gone within 24 hours. We didn’t care much because at that point we were set on renting and weren’t really looking at it, but it opened our eyes to the existence of affordable central properties like it and the reality that they move fast.

If we wanted to try and explore other options like that house, we were going to have to get serious or get over it. The half-hearted in-between was going to drive us nuts. So we got serious, I got over my rent-or-nothing attitude and we got an agent. That’s when real estate really gets real.

You know better than a lender what you can reasonably afford.

The first step in our more serious home search was moving beyond free online mortgage calculators to an actual loan application.

We qualified for nearly twice what we ended up spending, which required a critical lesson in the art of restraint.

Your lender will only know you as a bunch of numbers on paper — credit scores, car payments, school loans, salary, investments, etc. They won’t know where you want to travel this year or how much furniture you have to buy or that you hope to retire at 40 (lol) or that you want to get your doctorate or that you’re planning to launch a side business or any other expensive lifestyle factors that matter to you but don’t factor into their equation.

We might be in a comfortable dual income, no kids situation right now, but we don’t expect to be forever. So we had to buy ahead for the financial life we think we might be living 5, 10, 15 years down the road, not the life we’re living right this second.

Your lender is responsible for figuring out the cap on what you can reasonably afford to pay back. You’re the one in charge of buying a house where you can live a life you actually want to live.

The right agent makes all the difference in the world.

We met our agent, Chad Burns, quite by accident through a random Zillow inquiry. He was the first person to call me back (at a weird early-morning hour, no less) so I immediately liked him.

Sticking with Chad was easily the best decision we made in the whole process. He was over-the-top accommodating, always accessible and extremely patient as we gained our footing. He stayed up on the phone with us all night while we worked up the courage to submit our first offer only to have us bail at midnight and ask to sleep on it.

We submitted that offer the next day, the seller accepted and that’s the house we now own. We would not have gotten through it without Chad’s guidance.

Buying a house doesn’t have to mean moving to the suburbs.

A lot of what turned me off from buying in Charlotte was the assumption that we’d never get what we wanted at a price we could afford. I felt like we could either have the urban-centric lifestyle we enjoy or a house we own — but not both.

Unlike a lot of other first-time homebuyers who come in amped up to find the perfect home and have to be reminded that some sacrifices will have to be made, I had to be coached out of my bleak assumption that buying a house would be an all-or-nothing obliteration of life as I knew it.

Instead of giving up a few wish list items to get a house I wanted, I felt like I’d be giving up everything to get a house I didn’t even really want.

But that’s not what happened.

In the end, we managed to double our square footage, add a big backyard, stay a bike-able distance from both of our offices and keep it on budget — for the exact same price we pay for rent now. I had no idea any of that was possible until about two months ago.

It was one hell of a trip to get there, but it wasn’t nearly as unbearable as I thought it would be. The first month certainly hasn’t been perfect and I’m sure the homeowner headaches will only get more severe, but I’m happy I gave the process a chance.

So I will stand corrected on renting versus buying — inside my new house. Come talk to me when it comes time to replace the roof or something though.