Gosars on the Go!

Ever since I can remember, Amit and I have bonded over HGTV shows. In fact, it was our favorite thing to do as a newly married couple. We would cozy up to shows like Fixer Upper and often wonder what would our dream home look like if ever had such an opportunity and enough money to take on a remodel. 

It’s taken 15 years and two homes to be presented with the opportunity of our dreams! So if you’re in the same boat, don’t be disheartened. Come on this journey with us, it could just be the inspiration or information you need to make your dream a reality! 

But First a little history…

2007

We bought our first home. It was a brand new construction but I was still in college (yes, I was among the fortunate few to have owned my first home at 21). Having been just married we were also bound by Amit’s modest fresh college grad, post-economic crisis salary. Needless to say, we were house poor and I had to pretend the limited selection process for our home was the closest we’ll get to our dream for now. 

2012

We moved to Silicon Valley in 2012 to leverage the booming tech scene there. While this meant an increase in our income it also meant a significant increase in our cost of living. Despite that, we purchased our home in 2014. It was a great home at a great location and the biggest upside was it came with the potential for it to be turned into a dream home. However, once again we were house poor. I was 7 months pregnant with my first and my second was born in 2016. I also got laid off after both my pregnancies. All of this severely hampered the pace at which we could work on this home.

2020

We had been toying with the idea of moving back to the east coast on and off since late 2018. We’d had enough of the hustle life in the Valley and wanted to raise our boys at a much slower pace of life and better quality of life. Then the pandemic hit. What was meant to be a 3-5 year plan quickly accelerated to, maybe now? Especially, since Amit was in the midst of interviews with companies that were now open to a more geo-diverse workforce. Our fate was sealed in late 2020 – Amit was going to be working in NYC and we were going to be living in New Jersey, where my family now resides.

2021

We didn’t have to move right away hence began the home buying process once again. Once we got over the sticker shock of how much property prices had increased on this side of the country as well, we noticed a trend in NJ. There was a ton of new construction of “custom homes” where:

• A builder buys a property, tears it down to build a custom home based on trends, and then sells it as a “new construction”, for a profit of course.
• Or buyers (like us) scope out really old homes, buy them and work with a builder to truly custom build the home of their dreams.

You can see why that second option might have gotten us excited and terrified at the same time!!! Terrified because – it’s a massive time suck, it’s capital intensive and we’d heard couples needing counseling after quarreling during the process (j/k but not really). More on this later but for us, we knew it was now or never so we decided to take the plunge. Hence began the search for the perfect Fixer Upper.

2022

This is going to be our year! We just closed on our construction on the home we secured last year, officially kicking off our journey to building our dream home! Despite being in the works for almost 2 years, we’re just getting started. I have a lot more to share so stick around. 

Follow me on this blog and our Instagram @gosarsonthego to know more about how we got here, where we are now and where we’re heading from here.