Goal #1: Buy a home = Done!!

Sorry I kept it from you blogworld, but I just didn't want to jinx it like last time! We closed on our first home today!! (If you want to know what goal I'm talking about, check out the "My 100 Goals" tab at the top of the page)

I've been keeping this little journal for the past two months, so if you're interested in how our home buying process went down, read on!

Monday, April 25

We viewed four houses after work and this one was the clear winner over the others. I loved it. Hubby was hesitant because he grew up only three miles away - he didn't know if he was willing to move back to that area. I tried not to pressure him because I totally get that!

Wednesday, April 27

We went back with our agent for a second look, and submitted an offer! J decided he loves it just as much as I do. We didn't know when we'd hear back because it's a foreclosure.

Thursday, April 28
We heard back from the bank via their selling agent. Before they accepted our offer, they wanted to know exactly what repairs we'd be asking them to make and how much they'd cost.

We had requested that they allow 1.5% of the sale price to be used for any repairs the home needed. This is required for a VA loan - the seller has to pay for any problems with the house.

The bank wanted us to get an inspection before they'd accept our offer, outlining what they'd have to pay for. Luckily, my dad is a contractor and electrician, so we didn't have to pay a couple hundred dollars to an inspector when the house might not even be ours! So, so lucky!!

Saturday, April 30
My parents joined me at the house to check it out (James had to work unfortunately). Dad was able to point out several items that the bank had to fix (electrical wires missing, leaky toilet, fan installed wrong, etc.), then a few more that we'll have to take care of once it's ours. I was happy that he thought it was a good purchase though!

Our realtor reported these findings and cost estimates to the selling agent, who already told us that there had been no other offers on the house. We hoped to hear back within a few days.

Tuesday, May 3, 8:00 a.m.
We had no response, but the price of the house was dropped by $5,000 - $100 under our offer! This had me worried. Did this mean they planned to reject our offer because of VA requirements??

Tuesday, May 3, 4:00 p.m.
Received notification that multiple offers had been made. Our agent surmised that they had reduced the price to try to get more interest, and it worked :( This is frustrating because we already made an offer almost a week earlier! We were asked to make our best and final offer, and decided to keep the amount we originally submitted. This is what our agent advised was an appropriate price, and it was now over the asking price.

Friday, May 6
Counter offer received. It's super confusing but my best explanation is: The bank didn't want to pay for the repairs that we gave them estimates for, but agreed to everything else. This wouldn't work because they have to pay for them or we wouldn't get a VA loan. So we upped our price by a couple thousand to cover most of the cost and submitted our counter offer back.

Monday, May 9
Offer accepted!!!

Thursday, May 12
We met our agent at her office to sign the contract. Once all necessary repairs were made to the house, we would have to get an inspection done.

Wednesday, May 18
We approved the contractor bid for them to get started on repairs. During this time a lot of other stuff was going on behind the scenes that we weren't involved in. Our mortgage broker was working on securing financing, and our realtor was working out contract details.

Monday, May 23
We received the appraisal report - it came back exactly at the price we agreed on. One thing that they noted was that the exterior paint was peeling on the trim. Since the house was built before lead paint was banned, it could fall and contaminate the soil, so the bank/seller was required to scrape it off and re-paint.

Saturday, June 4
Home inspection with my dad. We found some small things that we'll have to address like outlets not working, the chimney needs some little part, etc. And we discovered rat poop - ewww!

Also found things that the seller has to fix. They didn't replace the broken toilet like they said they did (annoying!), and the stove didn't work for some reason - the gas nor the clock.

Saturday, June 11
Exterior painting was done, and they fixed a small hole in our kitchen ceiling that they had previously refused to repair. Stove was fixed but they refused to replace the toilet.

Thursday, June 23
J and I signed final documents for the loan! It took place at our old house with our mortgage broker, realtor and a notary. After that, we went to our new home for our final walkthrough. We found a hole in the ceiling that was never there before (WTF) and demanded that they fixed it... which they did the next day :)

After the walkthrough we went to the Sears Outlet and bought a refrigerator!

Wednesday, June 29
We got our key!! It's officially ours! I took lots of pictures to share soon. Tomorrow I'm working until noon and then will get to work moving some boxes and taking care of stuff around the house. Both James and I took Friday off for a long, hard, exciting, rewarding weekend!

Can't wait to blog more about our home!!

Top 10 reasons I'm glad our offer was rejected

1. The kitchen needs to be remodeled
2. Difficult sellers/selling agent
3. Boring backyard with not enough shade
4. Power pole, electrical lines and sewer manhole in the backyard
5. The walls are dirty
6. Moldy wall in the bedroom
7. Tiny bathrooms
8. Lack of closet storage
9. High price
10. We'll find something better!

There, I feel better already :)

We're going to start looking into a neighborhood that I used to live in when I was in college. J didn't like the idea before because he grew up very close by, so it felt too close to home. But now he's changing his tune thanks to our dislike of a lot of other areas (too new, too master planned, too trashy, etc. etc.)!

I'm not sure if we're picky about location or not... we don't want to live too far out in the suburbs, but we don't want to live in the ghetto. We want to live in a nice neighborhood but can't afford many of them.We want to minimize commute time (and work in slightly different areas). We want to feel safe and send our future kiddos to good public schools. I know we'll find this place (with a house we love and can afford in it) eventually!

Rejected

Our offer was rejected :( The selling agent is really unprofessional and crazy, so it's probably best that we don't have to deal with her. She was never going respond to our offer despite our agent's 10+ calls and emails because the sellers are not willing to accept anything under the asking price. What really gets me, is that the listing specifically says "Willing to entertain all offers." Why did they say that then?! We offered 92.5% of asking, it's not like we super low balled it. Ugh, I'm annoyed. I have hope that we'll find something even better...

Offer update

I just heard from our agent that even though we gave the sellers until tonight at 6 p.m. to respond, they won't be doing so until Wednesday :( Apparently their "schedules aren't meeting up," and my best guess is that they are going to meet in person to put together a counter offer. We expected this. I hope I can sleep the next two nights!

House hunting 4/17/11

This weekend our Realtor was out of town, but luckily she set us up with a partner of hers so we didn't have to miss out on seeing some new listings.

House #1

 

Pros

• Large rooms.
• High ceilings.
• Like the kitchen.
• Great curb appeal.
• Lots of storage.

Cons

• Pretty sure the neighborhood is just not for us - it's too new and "master planned."
• Seems smaller than it is. It's over 1400 square feet but it doesn't feel that large.
• Small dining area.
• Yucky carpet.

House #2

Pros

• Very big.
• It has a bonus room (basically a fourth bedroom, but without a closet) that we could use as a guest room or office.
• Good curb appeal.

Cons

• Same area as house #1.
• Quite a bit more expensive that house #1. Although it's bigger, the first was big enough. If we wanted to live in that area, we'd choose the smaller house and save the money.

House #3

I'm not going to post pictures of this house, because we made an offer!! Potential stalkers could find the listing with photos I post here, and then they'd know our address. So no pics for now... sorry :(

I'm trying not to get too attached or excited, because lots of things could prevent this from being our home. It's an old house (56 years old) and may have problems that the sellers are not willing to pay for.

FYI with a VA loan like we are using, the sellers must fix any safety-related problems. The VA buyers are not allowed to pay for them, and we will not be given a loan if the sellers won't fix them.

The one thing we know will need to be fixed is a wall in one of the bedrooms that is rotted/moldy. It doesn't appear to be too bad though, and it has a new roof so the source of the damage should be fixed now.

We'll see, if we even get to an inspection! First we have to agree on a price. We're not willing to pay full asking price, even though it's a steal for the area. The neighborhood is fantastic... but we have a budget.

Anywho, we found a house we like!! I was fearing that this would never happen... my stomach is in knots. The seller has until 6 p.m. to respond to our offer!

Pros

• Great school district.
• Adorable neighborhood.
• Big, and it feels big.
• It has hardwood under the carpet, which we'd like to refinish.
• Huge master bedroom.
• Good curb appeal.
• New double-pane windows, new roof and new garage door.

Cons

• Small kitchen, but I have plans for expansion :) It will take quite a bit of work though.
• Small bathrooms, for which I have no plans for expansion... this is something we're willing to live with.
• Old, and kind of dirty.
• The landscaping in the backyard needs help.

House #4

Pros

• We like the neighborhood.
• Right next to a walking path.
• Great layout.
• Fab yard.

Cons

We knew this was a no-go as soon as we walked in. All the wood flooring is waaaay warped. Like, crazy warped and there are waves a foot high in most rooms. It appears that there was either a major flood in the house, or they didn't leave room for expansion that naturally occurs with wood. It's freaky!

Of course they didn't post a picture with the online listing, but I found a similar photo here:

We'd never be approved for a VA loan with this situation going on. Too bad, because it's a great house!

___________________________________________

So where are we now? We're currently waiting to hear from the seller - they can either accept our offer, reject it, or counter offer. This is bananas! :P

House hunting 4/10/11

Spoiler alert: None of these houses are our home.

But we're getting closer!

House #1

Good

4 bedrooms

Love the layout

Room to add a kitchen island

Our favorite of the day

Bad

Outdated (But I can totally see the potential with a little bit of love!). It would need new floors, windows and appliances

Farther out in the 'burbs than we wanted

The weirdest thing about this house? It's the same design as the house James grew up in and where his mom still lives! It's basically a mirror image, with a few changes. We got serious deja vu. This doesn't bother me a ton since I always liked the design of that house. But he was freaked out by it a bit!

House #2

Good

Big house

Big yard

...that's it

Bad

Weird layout

Converted garage

Craphole (yeah it's a technical term)

Faces the back of a high school 

House #3

Good

Nice, clean, updated interior

Big backyard

Feels big - good layout

Bad

Teeny tiny kitchen

Bad neighborhood

1 car garage

House #4

Good

New carpet, paint

Clean

Love the backyard

Nice curb appeal

Bad

Faces the side of a school

A little small

Small, old kitchen and dining room

House #5

 {Sorry, no more pictures available online.}

Good

Feels big

Large living room, family room and dining room

4 bedrooms

Bad

Super weird/random nooks and crannies everywhere

2 stories

1 car garage

It has 2 bedrooms upstairs and 2 bedrooms downstairs - not good for when we have 2 kids

Overall strange

House #6

Good

Seems like a good neighborhood

Bad

Really only has 2 bedrooms. The "possible" 3rd is a family room.

Fugly backyard

Bad layout that makes it feel way smaller than it is

House #7

Good

Big and perfect layout for us

Bad

Reeks of cigarette smoke

The whole backyard is paved over

Needs a whole new kitchen and all new flooring

Too close to the freeway - you can hear it from the front yard

Rat poop!

House hunting 4/3/11

Today was our first day out looking at houses with our realtor. We've been going to open houses a little as they come up (like this one and this one), but actually making appointments to see our favorite houses was so much better!

We were able to see 5 of our favorite houses. They were all regular sales (as opposed to short sales). We had some additional faves that are short sales, but our realtor recommended against those because they take so long. If we don't find a regular sale that's a good fit we'll check them out, but this was a good start. Just these 5 in 1 day was exhausting anyway.

House 1

(3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms)

Good

It's in a nice neighborhood with good schools. It has a nice backyard with a deck and good amount of grass. We liked the yard a lot. It has good curb appeal - looks cute from the front (Warning: It's very hard to think of better describing words than "nice" and "good." My apologies.)

  Bad

Weird layout. We're pretty sure that they added on a new living/dining room and it didn't work so well.

It only has 1.5 bathrooms and we realized that we really need 2 full.

There is a lot of cosmetic work to be done and it's priced too high for what it is.

House 2

(3 bedrooms plus a bonus office, 2 bathrooms)

Good

We loved the layout. The kitchen was huge and open to the living and dining areas.

 
The extra room (it would be considered a fourth bedroom, but it lacks a closet) is ideal for us to use as an office. The rooms all feel large because of the high ceilings and have lots of features we want like double sinks in the master bath, walk-in closet, etc.

Bad

It's pretty trashed. It's a foreclosure, and the walls are filthy and all the carpet would need to be replaced (and it's priced high for us). It's just icky. The house is also located on a busy street and it's super loud in the front yard from the traffic. The backyard is a downside too, as it's mostly paved over and it feels very harsh. We want grass!

House 3

(3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms)

 

 

 Good

I was so excited to see this house! Aside from being 2 stories (we prefer a 1-story ranch style), it was almost perfect. It was on the market forever and was out of our price range, but they recently dropped the price $30,000.

The carpet was in good shape. The yard was lush and private. It's a modern layout and would work great for us. I could totally see us living and raising a family here! Until...

Bad

I noticed a large amount of mold in one of the bedroom closets. Taking that into consideration, we remembered that the exterior of the house had a good deal of the siding replaced suspiciously - very obvious because it wasn't painted over. The bedroom is on the second floor while this work was on the first, so we are pretty certain that whole side of the house has some pretty serious water/mold damage. This explains why it's been for sale for months and months. Even if we wanted to deal with it, the type of loan we're getting won't even allow it until it's fixed (and it's a foreclosure so they won't fix it). It seems like a money pit.

Some other negatives that we were willing to live with: Linoleum in the kitchens and bathrooms, old lighting fixtures and beat up kitchen cabinets.

House 4

(3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms)

Good

This is actually the same model as house 3, but reversed. So I loved the layout again (although James isn't as sold on 2 level houses). The yard is cute and the house overall is extremely clean.

 

Bad

Two words: Pink Carpet. Okay actually I have more words than that... almost all the flooring (a combination of pink carpet and linoleum) would be replaced, along with the kitchen counters and appliances. 

 

 

 

Another major downfall was that our master bedroom window faces the master bedroom window of the house behind us. We could totally open the windows and have a conversation (yelling... but still). Our windows also overlook each others' yards, and it's just creepy. You can see their window in the yellow room above.

 

This was my favorite house of the day though, still.

House 5

(3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms)

Good

Great yard - actually it's ideal for us (it looks better in person than in this picture). The bedrooms are good sizes and there's a walk-in closet. Great price too.

Bad

The kitchen, dining room and living room are way too small. I wish they matched the other half of the house because then we'd love it! It's just not a workable space, unfortunately.

 

Although none of these houses turned out to be our home, today was a success in my mind. We were able to refine our wants and needs and learn more about what we can and can't live with (we can't live with 1.5 bathrooms, but we can live with old appliances and carpet (or replace them easily).

Pre-approved!

We have officially been pre-approved for a mortgage! Now we can meet with our realtor and start looking at homes for real :) Many thanks to my sister who recommended both our mortgage broker and realtor - so far so good!

Unfortunately, the pre-approval process that should have taken a few days was drawn out to almost two painstaking months! Long story short... James disputed a charge on his credit card over a year ago. Capitol One (who I am not a fan of currently!) left it kind of "pending" on his credit report for the whole past year. So our loan officer couldn't access his credit score.

It took many, many weeks of phone calls, explaining and re-explaining that they needed to fix it... but here we are! We're so ready to get started.

If any newbie home buyers like me are interested in what it took to be pre-approved, here's a list of documents we needed to provide. I know a few months ago I was super curious about what we'd need to do, so here you go...

• W-2s from the past two years
• Federal tax returns from the past two years
• Pay stubs from the past two months
• Bank statements from the past two months
• Copies of our driver licenses and social security cards
• Our marriage license
• James' college transcript and diploma (Only because he's been out and working full time for under a year)
• James' DD2-14 (Military discharge paperwork - only because we're getting a VA loan)

I think our loan officer is much more thorough than others who may not require all of these things before even finding a house, but I see that as a good thing. Considering the trouble it has been already, I'd hate to fall in love with a house and then loose it due to missing paperwork!

We'll hopefully check out some houses soon, and I'll be sure to share the experience here :)