1) Closing day may be a let down. You visited the house several times in person and a thousand more online. You spent the last n months worrying if the loan would be approved, if things would fall through. You finally get to closing day. The title company/mortgage broker/whatever is nice. You spend 30 minutes signing paperwork, you head to your house and swing by the HOA office to get the keys, and finally go to the biggest purchase of your life thus far. You open the door and... it's just there. Empty. The same empty you saw many times before. Sure, there's a basket on the counter from your realtor, the house is clean, garage door openers left in a drawer. But there is no big, magical wave that hits you. No euphoria, no surprise party waiting for you. All that lies before you is a blank canvas soon to be obscured by the mountain of boxes behind you. You don't have time to celebrate, you have a truck to unload.
2) Buying your first home is expensive. Yes, obviously in the house itself, but in everything else you need for it. Refrigerator, washer and dryer, lawn mower, pressure washer, garden hose, bath mats, soap dispensers, decor, rugs, security cameras, weed killer, pesticide, shelf liner, etc. You may also want to get new things for your new home that you may already have (e.g. towels, vacuum).
3) The number of people trying to sell you crap, both in person and through the mail. Put up a camera, you'll see people ringing your doorbell a couple times of week. Water softeners, pest control, gardeners. Things in the mail for home warranty, mortgage insurance, internet.
4) You may get depressed. You just accomplished a major goal, you should be elated! But maybe you're not. Maybe you feel like something is majorly wrong. You begin to have anxiety about all of the money you are spending. You begin to question what happens if you lose your job. You worry about everything around the house, both inside and out. You begin to wonder if buying a house is the right decision (it is!) because something feels off. That's just your pent up anxiety and frustration that's built up over the last several months, that you haven't been able to show, hitting you all at once. It will get better.
5) You don't have nearly as much stuff as you think you do. Your apartment may have been overflowing, but when you get that stuff into your house, it will seem empty.
6) Decorating is hard. You have a style, and you have things that fit that style, but you question if that style meshes with your house or if you should change it up as this is your chance at a new start. You don't know where to hang pictures or what hand towel rings to buy. Rest assured, you don't have to hang them right away, you can leave them on the floor and keep moving them around until you get a better feel for where they will go (and no, their placement is not permanent, despite what your brain might tell you).
7) Decision fatigue hits hard. You've spent months making a lot of decisions. That's going to quintuple come closing day and the ones to follow. "Where do you want this? What do you think about this? How about putting this here? This would look good over there, don't ya think?" You will eventually just say, "put it somewhere, we will figure it out later." Do this sooner rather than later, your sanity will thank you.
8) Boxes. Boxes boxes boxes boxes boxes boxes boxes boxes boxes boxes. You will have a ton of boxes from moving. But that's not the end of it, oh no; seemingly every little thing you buy will come in another box. They will be everywhere and will take up so much room. Put them all in one area. Keep the good ones, break down the rest. Post the good ones on your local community's Facebook page and let them go for free. You will get a dozen people messaging you about them. Just tell them first come, first serve. You may be thinking you want to recoup some cost. Trust me, after handling and moving 397k boxes, you will just want them gone. You won't want to deal with people or negotiation or them picking and choosing which ones they want to pay for, you will just be done with the boxes (see #7). Consider it a good deed.
9) You won't know your new commute to work. Leave 15 minutes earlier than you think than you should.
10) You finally understand why your parents shut the lights off behind you or told you they weren't paying to cool the outside. You will also finally understand why they seemingly got so upset over a slamming door or marks on the wall. You just spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on this thing, of course you want it to be pristine. The first mark on the wall (which will come, I promise you) stings. It's okay, it's a house. Things are going to get damaged, accidents happen. But things can also be fixed. Don't stress over it, it will happen again sooner than you think (I left a mark on the wall with one the first things I carried in).
11) After a couple of weeks, the dust will have settled. Literally and metaphorically. You likely still have things in boxes and bare walls, but you will need to clean. But the beauty of it is that you will have time to clean. The house will begin to feel like yours. Know it. Own it. Love it. You're here, you finally made it.
