House Hunting: A Look at my Experience as a First-Time Home Buyer in Tacoma Washington

Most people have legit hobbies (and I do too) but one of my favorite things to do over the last.. oh.. most of the last 10 years… has been looking at real estate. In part, I blame my parents for taking us on drives just to go look at different neighborhoods or drive by houses they admired. Which is kind of funny considering we really only lived in one house pretty much my whole childhood. And even though I thought my mom was a total weirdo for looking in the windows of new developments or houses for sale (vacant only — she’s not thattt creepy) somewhere along the line I got bit with the bug too. By the time I moved to NYC that “bug” turned into a full-blown hobby and once I discovered HGTV it was alllllll over. True story, for a long time it was my goal to be able to figure out which part of the country they were in on House Hunters before they said just by the style of homes/price ranges. 🙈I told you, this is more than just casually checking here or there.

Once I moved back to Washington, the dream of being able to own a place actually started to feel a little more attainable and it’s been 2 solid years of busting our booties to continue growing our business and bulking up those savings! Being self-employed, getting financing can be a little tricky and it’s definitely a time game. Typically you need at least 2 years of solid tax returns to qualify and the way things are calculated is a little different than if you have a 9-to-5. My business partner actually has a really awesome post on that if you’re interested in the process too. My original plan was to start looking for places in 2020, but my mom revved this real estate monster up this fall and helped me jump into this chapter earlier. She always joked she’d help me buy a condo if I moved back west and she was the one who helped me seal the deal on my loan.

So now that we closed on a place YAY! I thought it would be fun to give you a look at my experience and some of the listings I saw. So let’s get down to the fun and do a little House Hunters Anna buys a house in Tacoma edition!

Hillside Townhouse

Insert the Hillside Townhouse. It was this street of townhouses that got me to pull the trigger on looking into getting preapproved. We had actually gone to an open house for a townhouse down the street just for fun and then this one popped up as we were filling out our paperwork. Within 24 hours, I found the listing, scheduled a showing, got preapproved, signed my agent Melo Hogan (she ROCKS) and put in an offer. Say whattt?! I told you things got serious fast.

My agent explained that this listing was going to go fast and that they had priced it under market value to entice over list offers. So we went in over ask and then they sat on our offer for 4 grueling days until their offer review date, only to find out there were multiple offers on the table. So we did a little more strategizing and went back with our highest and best offer (now at 10k total over ask 😱). Plus I wrote a personal letter where I even dropped a Grey’s Anatomy OG reference, I meannn at least my offer was going to stand out right?!

It would have been pretty dang awesome if I got the first place I put an offer in on, but you kind of already know I didn’t get it since this is only the first house in this post. Unfortunately, we ended up getting outbid by a “significantly higher” offer and I’m not going to lie, there were a lot of tears. That was just the first go around too before things got a little weird… I’ll spare you the nitty gritty but, their deal ended up falling through and then came back to us another 2 rounds. We put a total of 4 offers in and went through 2 bidding wars but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Fav Things

Rooftop, ROOFTOP, ROOFTOP!!!
2 decent sized bedrooms
Nice kitchen and finishes
Office + area for a man cave next to the garage
Parking spots in front in addition to garage
Close to downtown, freeways, our garden and 5 mins from our current neighborhood

Not Fav Things

Still a developing neighborhood
They disclosed the roof had leaked and would need repaired prior to closing
House next door were bought by developers and would be doing construction in future
Would have to remove hot tub off roof

This was just the beginning of the journey though! Things may not have worked out on this one but we were officially preapproved and it was all systems go on the house hunt. After things calmed down it also let me take a few steps back and chat with Melo about what was reallyyyy important to me, since we did things a little backward the first time around. Here’s what I came up with…

Areas: Townhouse land (Hillside/Hilltop), North Tacoma, and West End
Types: Townhouse, Condo, or House
Budget: Max $330k
Bedrooms/Sq Ft: 2-3 bedroom 900-1500 sq ft.
Parking Sit: Garage (ideally), driveway or accessible parking so that my car isn't getting beat to crap
Has to have: Some sort of outdoor space.. either private rooftop, balcony or shared rooftop and good lighting for my plant babies

Once we had the dream list in check, Melo got down to business right away and started sending me some really awesome options.

Narrows Condo

Fav Things

The neighborhood was great and it was private off of the main road
24/7 Security gate
Adorable balcony with peek-a-boo water view
Vaulted ceilings
Nice finishes throughout
Great closet space/storage

Not Fav Things

It was on the 3rd floor which wouldn’t have been ideal for Scoots
The bedrooms weren’t very big
The Living room wasn’t huge either
HOA fees were on higher end — great features (pool, hot tub, sauna, etc.) but might not be things I would use regularly

Next up was the Narrows condo. I was really interested in this one because I liked the location on the West End. It’s close to Point Defiance, which I spend a lot of time at year-round and it’s also close to our garden and other places I run my errands. The community was awesome too because it had a full on security guard and the grounds were beautiful. One of my hang-ups on condo complexes is I didn’t want it to feel like an apartment complex and this one definitely didn’t have those vibes. The condo was super nice and had some great bonus features, but ultimately it felt a little cramped for the square footage. Plus it had a higher HOA than some other listings (although still very moderate for the area) so even though it had a lower price point the payment was still higher. During this process, I learned a lot about how much the HOA and taxes can impact your monthly payment!

West End Rambler

Listed: $325,000 | House | 1,008 sq ft | West End | 3 Bedroom | 1 bath | garage

Fav Things

Great neighborhood
Some updates throughout including kitchen
Had a wood burning fireplace
Great backyard with potential and had fruit trees
She Shed potential!

Not Fav Things

Would need some updates eventually and was a little scared of what would be in the walls
Baseboard heating
The ceilings were kind of low
The garage was a little scary

Next up was the West End Rambler! This one was also located on the West End just a little more north and it was the first actual house I looked at. I had always saw myself buying a townhouse or a condo so a house wasn’t really on my radar. After realizing you could up the budget quite a bit and still have about the same payment as a townhouse or condo though because they don’t have HOAs I decided it might be worth looking into. This house was located in a cute older neighborhood in a safe part of the city and it had a lot of curb appeal. I liked it because it had some upgrades and then it also had a backyard with a ton of potential and a She Shed! I’ve always had dreams of having a she shed so that def drew me in! While it was definitely move-in ready, there were some updates I’d want to make sooner rather than later so I didn’t feel like it was the one. But, it definitely opened me up to the idea of a house which was a big deal!

Fircrest Townhouse

Listed: $329,000 | Townhouse | 1,541 sq ft | Fircrest | 2 Bedroom + Den | 3 bath | Tandem garage

Fav Things

Really nice area and neighborhood
Such cute curb appeal
Really great layout and detail throughout
Double master suites with huge bedrooms and walk-in closets
Colorful throughout — love color of outside plus painted throughout
Balcony + backyard space
Huge garage that fits 2 cars
Right by Lowe’s, Home Depot, Home goods, Trader Joes, and parks and beaches I go to on the reg

Not Fav Things

Little further from downtown and old neighborhood
At top of budget
Not much street parking in neighborhood
HOA but way lower than downtown options

And then there was the ONE! The Fircrest townhouse. Funny enough, I drove through the neighborhood the day before because there was another listing that was a little above my budget. Where that one was located, the streets were a little narrow and I joked to Scoots (because obvi my pup was doing drive-bys with me) that I wish one of the townhouses near the front of the neighborhood were for sale. Then BOOM, the next afternoon this listing popped up right at the entrance of the neighborhood. Within two hours of being listed, Melo had scheduled us a viewing and it was love at first sight. Truly. The second I walked in I was like OMG….. 😍😍😍 It was everything and MORE I could have ever dreamt of. The bedrooms were massive, it had a big office space, open kitchen, a balcony and backyard, a huge garage and it’s in an awesome neighborhood.

After running through all the rooms and doing a happy dance in the living room, I looked at Melo and said, ok… real talk, what is it going to take to get this place?! I was still a little burned by the first townhouse offer saga and knew I wanted to give it my all to get this place! The other thing was at the top of my budget and I didn’t know if I could go much higher with financing…. NERVESSSS! I regrouped with my Mom, Melo and our financing team and we went in with a full-price offer. By the next afternoon, we were notified that the other there was another offer submitted too. Truthfully, my heart sank. I knew this was the one and the thought that I might lose out on another listing had me stressed to the max. Everyone talks about how hot the market is right now… but it really is HOT!

We put together a strategy and I talked to financing and we were actually able to go higher than we thought. So after some research and strategizing we went 11k over ask with inspection and appraisal contingencies. My mom thought I was insane, but with most of the listings I had looked at going on avg 10k over ask… and the chance that the other offer was already over the listing price, I just didn’t want to risk it. Plus, in terms of the monthly payment, it hardly made a difference.

The next 24 hours felt like an eternity… but the next day we found out we GOT it!!! HGTV makes it look like once your offer is accepted you’re good to go, but we still had some hoops to get through. Luckily, this WAS meant to be so everything worked out perfectly thanks to my amazing team and now I’m the proud new owner of the cutest townhouse ever! Eeeekkk! And now I may live here forever because holy moly I’m too much of a stress ball for the process!

I cannot say thanks enough to my dream team that made this happen! Plus, in the scheme of things… my process went SO fast. We went from casually going to open houses here or there to getting serious about things the second weekend of September and then getting our townhouse offer accepted on October 12th. Which looking back blows my mind that that whole process was a few days short of a month because I know people look for months… even up to a year to find THE one! Getting really serious about my must-haves and having a wonderful agent who sent great listings and got us showing in record-time really was the game-changing combo. So I hope you enjoyed looking through my listings and now that we’re moved in, I cannot wait to share more DIY and home decor posts!! 🙌🏻