Later, we started talking about how we could fix R's credit and setting a new time frame for buying a house. We decided that we should be able to pay most of the debt with our taxes and that we should start looking seriously at the beginning of the year. So, that is pretty much what we did. We looked at openhouseok.com and found several houses that we were interested in. We had a list of criteria that we were dead set on getting.
1. The house needed to have at least 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms
2. There had to be a place for an office. We were looking for either an extra room or even a 2nd living room that could be converted.
3. The Kitchen had to be fairly decent sized with plenty of cabinet space and counter tops.
4. The ideal kitchen would be open enough to see into the living room
5. Must, Must, absolutely must have a laundry room
6. Preferably 3 car garage so R would have a Man space and somewhere to work on his motorcycle.
7.Outlets in the bathroom
8. Abundance of Outlets period
9. Would be nice to have a Walk-in-closet
10. Front and Back Porch
There was other small things that we were looking for but this was the basics. I spent most of my free time looking at houses and i stumbled upon this gorgeous house that met our criteria but seemed to be a little over our budget. I didn't tell R about it and went on looking at houses. Then one night, R was looking at houses online and came across a house. This house fit all of our criteria but it was a little over our budget. He called me over to look at it and lo and behold it was the same house. Seeing how it is hard to get two people to agree on anything we decided to call and schedule a showing. We were disappointed when we called and the Realtor informed us that the seller's had already accepted a conditional offer on the house.
A few days later she called back to see if we still wanted to see the house (apparently the offer fell through). We jumped on this renewed opportunity and scheduled a showing for that house and several others. We expexted it to take several hours (to look at all the houses)and had Ronnie's parents watch the kiddos. We arrived at the house and were awestruck immediately. We walked in and told the Realtor that we didn't need to see any other house that we were ready to make an offer. So, we went back to her office and signed the paperwork. Note: before we signed anything we did inform her that there were some blemishes on R's credit that we were going to get fixed ASAP and that we hadn't been pre-approved or anything yet. She assured us that it was ok and that was that. R tried calling the loan officer that the Realtor suggested was extremely hard to get a hold of and was taking forever to get back to us. So, R asked around and was directed to go talk to this other loan officer. Everything seemed great and this loan officer put R in contact with a guy to fix his credit. Things started rolling and we were soon waiting on news of the credit score. It came back and was a little low. R was advised of which debt to worry with and paid those off. Now we were anxiously awaiting the rapid re-score. However, there was a few problems with that. One of the things that we paid off was still showing up with TU. R called both TU and the company that he had paid off. I won't go into details but we had a time...and it took several days to get it straight. Then we had to have another rapid re-score done. Luckily it came back and we were able to qualify for the pre-approval. We then had to schedule the inspection. The inspection actually ended up being the easiest and most painless of all. The house came back with only two things wrong. The heater made a funny noise and the kitchen sink needed a 10 cent or so washer. The inspectors were shocked. They said most houses come back with five pages worth of stuff that needs to be fixed. Once that was completed we had to wait to go into underwriting. When we entered underwriting they scheduled the appraisal. The whole time I was leery of getting my hopes up. I didn't want our dreams to be crushed again. R had told nearly everyone he knew that we were getting a house and basically put as his FB status that we pretty much already had the house. I, on the other hand, did not tell hardly anyone. I think the only person I really told was my BFF. I just didn't want to half to turn around and tell them that we lost the house if that was to happen.
Stress levels were high during underwriting. R talked to both the loan officer and the Realtor on a daily basis. The Realtor and the loan officer were getting on each other's last nerves constantly.It didn't help matters that every time R asked how much longer the loan was going to be in underwriting or what was going on the loan officer said he didn't know. R was frustrated with having to deal with everything and I was frustrated because I couldn't do anything. I would call R several times a day to see what he found out. I was craving a play by play but was relying most the time on third hand information. The other thing that kept stressing us out was the seller's. Every day they threaten to back out. We were in underwriting so long that our original contract expired and the seller refused to sign the extension (even though we had told them weeks before that we may need to push back closing a few weeks and they agreed to do so if that was needed) until we had a closing date. They also threaten to put the house back on the market if we didn't help pay for the mortgage payment that was due. We were in a tight spot all around. R was yelling at everyone and was majorly stressed out. I felt so bad for the poor Man but I really couldn't help because everything was in his name. During all of this the Realtor called the CEO of the loan company and tried to get him to light a fire under the underwriters. What a mess all of this was. Finally, word came back from the underwriters and they had approved the loan on conditions (conditions that consisted of eight different things). R knocked those out like a mad man and had everything done in a little over 24 hours. We dealt with some more bumps as we were informed that it would take the underwriters several more days to actually go through and make sure we met the conditions and then after they approved everything it would be several more days before we could close. The seller's again threaten to back out if we didn't close on a certain day but the Realtor seemed to get them under control for awhile. The day we finally got our approval to close notification, R informed me that if we hadn't gotten it that day that the seller would have put the house on the market. That little bit of information made me so mad.
Back history- The house had a total of 12 trees which I had been joking about removing from day one. I told this to the Realtor and she mentioned to me that it might be good not to let the seller know that. That it could be a deal breaker. Apparently the sellers were very fond of these trees and might not sell us the house if they knew our plans to remove them.
Now back to the story........I was so mad at the sellers that I told R that I was going to purchase a wood chipper and the day we closed was going to take each of the trees and run it through the chipper and then I was going to mail the chips to the seller with a note saying "Heres Your Lovely Trees...Thought you might want them back" attached.
The day of closing finally arrived on Monday April 12, 2010. We signed all the documents (well actually I had to go back the next day to sign one that they forgot to have me sign) and received the keys. There was a little of a mishap but it had nothing really to do with us. We spent the rest of the week packing up our stuff and moving. It was a rough week. I was busy with school and school events but some how we managed and even threw a house warming party that Friday night. The Monday we closed we invited our parents over and showed off our beautiful home. Everyone loved the house and was so excited. I eventually had enough time and decorated the kitchen with my coca-cola collection. That Saturday or Sunday (I can't remember from the pure exhaustion of the week) my in-laws lavished us with house warming gifts. They bought us a new bedspread and pictures for our bedroom as well as towels and things for our master bath and a Home Sweet Home sign. Thursday I went shopping with my mom and sister-in-law and we picked up a few more pictures for the bedroom. The house is coming along nicely but there are so many things that I would like to buy but that will come in time. I have also become extremely anal about the house and have been feverishly picking up after everyone and spending most my free time making sure the house is presentable. I know this is a humongous post but I have been saving up for a long time. It is definitely not as funny or random as my other postings but I figured that some people were curious about what happened. Oh by the way I know this post seemed to be filled with complaining but I wanted to say how truly blessed we feel and how happy we are to be in our own house. Below are some pictures of our old house and pictures of our new house. (just so you can compare).
Front
Old House:
New House
Living Room
Old
New
Kitchen
Old
New
