The Appraisal is In!

Things seem to keep falling into place. We found out yesterday that our va appraisal did occur on Saturday. The house appraised for 2k more than our sales price. As you can imagine, we are very pleased. That is just one less issue that we have to deal with, so we are excited.

Trey will be at the house tomorrow morning so he can be present at the home inspection. This is the last major thing that has to take place and then we just have to wait for the loan officer to finish all the underwriting and we'll be on our way to closing on time. (Supposedly ha ha).

The lady that handles our loan has been going a bit wiggy over the money issue, because we have to prove how every dime gets into the bank account. I can't deposit a penny I find on the street without some form of documentation verifying it. Trey gets his gi bill money and they don't exactly send statements or anything, you just go on the computer and print it out, and they are having issues understanding that. I believe it's just because everything is on-line now instead of through mailed documents that they are having problems proving authenticity on things now. That's not our fault, that is just certain things lagging in the change of technologies.

We have been very pleased that ultimately this has been a very easy process. Just a few months ago we bought an all in one printer that has a scanner, and it has made our lives so easy in submitting documents. We just print out the bank statements, paycheck stubs, etc, scan them in and attach to emails and they have everything. Gone are the days of messing with a fax machine and hoping everything makes it. My mom was telling me about when my parents bought their first house how you had to mail everything back and forth. It was always one paper at a time and everything had to be notarized and waited on. It was crazy.

So, while we work to get this whole thing squared away, we are relieved that we still have plenty of time to get whatever might be needed, and that it has been relatively painless up until this point.

Just a couple of things...

The VA appraisal took place yesterday. We should know whether we are green lighted sometime on Monday. It will be close. We're hoping that since it's been taxed for more than what we are paying for it, that it will appraise for at least that.

Should the appraisal fall short, we do have a few options. 1.) Walk away 2.) Renegotiate the contract so the cost of the house meets the appraisal amount. 3.) Pay the difference of what the house appraises at and the amount we offered. If it's within a few hundred dollars or so, I imagine that we will just pay the difference. We already know that the seller is not going to drop the house price, although we do have about $1000 we can negotiate on, but no guarantees.

In the meantime, last night I scheduled the home inspection for Wednesday morning at 9. We don't anticipate any major problems. The only thing that Trey and I remember being a possibility is the front door needing to be replaced. It has some damage like someone tried to break into it since it's been empty. Usually they don't put appliances in a house until right before the house is closed on for that very reason, but they are already in there.

As of Friday, we satisfied the financial criteria that was placed on us for the loan approval. After this week, we stay in a holding pattern and wait until closing. Trey has a friend from work who will be letting us use his 30 ft trailer so we don't even have to get a moving truck this time. He's going to drop it off after we close and we can load it at our pace, and he'll pick it up and drive it to the new house so we can unload it. Can't get much easier than that.

I spent last night going through my closet. I have a huge black garbage bag that is going to be finding it's way to the Goodwill down the road. As for Jacob's and Kathryn's clothes, I'm going to put them up on craigslist and see if I get any takers. Might as well try to get some money for it, plus a lot of Jakey's stuff is from last winter. Perfect time to sell it. If not, off to Goodwill they go. I'm trying to go through a room a day if possible. It's a bit difficult when you have a Jakey attached to your leg undoing everything as you do it. He is quite the "helper" when clothes or dishes are involved.

It's been dicey, but we're still on track...

There have been several highs and lows over this whole home buying thing. Phew... I don't know if I ever want to buy one again. I have always read that buying a home is one of the most stressful things that you can do in your life, and at this point, I believe that Trey and I would both agree. It's a lot of time spent wringing your hands together and waiting for whatever is next to hit the fan. Let us not forget that we have decided to buy a house at what might be the absolute worst time in the world to do so.

It all started with us not being able to get a hold of our lender for over a week. The person handling our loan is receiving medical treatment for cancer, so he tends to be out of the office quite frequently. (While we are very sympathetic, it makes us wonder how in the world we wound up with this one. When we tried buying a house in New Mexico last year, we could never get our lender on the phone then either) Our realtor started going nuts, since he wasn't able to get information either.

Then Trey got a call last Thursday. Dum dum dum dum... We had to have almost $6000 by closing. Of course, Trey didn't get the call because he was working, so he was greeted by that on his voice mail. Talk about making you freak out. He spent all day Friday trying to get a hold of our lender to see a break down on the cost etc, but of course, no answer. Then we started thinking well that was the amt that we were looking at before we bought the house, and they must not be factoring in the $3000 we added to the sale price of the house to have the seller cover that amt in closing costs. We took a deep breath, believed all would be fine, especially since the gi bill was kicking in and we were owed some back payments.

Trey was off on Monday, and finally... he reached our lender. Of course, it was after we got yet another panicked call from our realtor wanting us to consider changing lenders before it was too late. Hey, the market is bad, and he wants his commission. He gets nothing if we don't close on the house. Fortunately, that's not our problem.

The VA appraisal money was taken, and we found out that our closing cost doubled. Holy cow! Our closing costs are up to 12k at this point. Some of it will roll into the loan, the seller will pay $3k of it, so we are responsible for about $5800 by closing aka October 15th. Deal off man... That's insane. I know that th market is going nuts, but how do closing cost completely double in barely 2 weeks?

After taking a long hard look at our finances, and knowing all the gi bill payments that are due to come in and all the overtime that Trey has been working, it looks do-able. Not only that, but after doing some careful studying of the good faith estimate, we noticed that they were still overestimating our insurance and taxes. Oh, I forgot to mention, that if you are smart, you won't buy a house with a va loan in October. Just about any other month, if you buy a house, you are only responsible for having to pay 3 months of taxes and insurance for closing. Nope, not us, we are special. We have to pay the full year's insurance premium and also 13 months of taxes up front. Yup, so that's what added the extra 4k to our closing costs. Shame that they couldn't tell us that ahead of time. After Trey and I made the adjustments since we know what it all is really going to cost, we should close at about $4800 instead. Keeping our fingers crossed.

But, all is good. The VA appraisal is supposed to have happened some time this week. It may have already happened, or could be happening as I type this. After this is done, then we can have the home inspected and have it pest inspected as well. We'll want to schedule that next week when Trey is off. He won't want to miss that one. I want to go back through and get some more pics of the place and take some window measurements, etc. That way I can start figuring out the prices of the blinds, etc. Start making plans for curtains, you all know what I'm like... ha ha...

So, we are still good. Trey is working as much overtime as he can get his hands on. He's amazing. He has to work nights all this weekend, and so he stayed up all night last night so that he could sleep all day today to be ready for the change in work schedule... He received a phone call this morning around 8 and asked him to come in and work all day long. Fortunately, it's his short night anyway, so he was only going to have to work from 4 till 8 tonight, but the poor guy still has to stay up all night and so he can work his 12 hour work shift Friday night/Saturday morning. He's doing whatever he can to pad the bank account so we'll satisfy all the criteria before closing. OH, and the good news... I finally unearthed the 401k statement that they were wanting. While that may not sound like a huge victory, if you could see Trey's desk, you'd understand what an undertaking it indeed was.

20 days until closing... So close, yet so far away...

Another Day Closer

Most would get a kick outta this, so I have to share. Trey called our insurance company to check out rates for insuring the new house. We were estimating about $1800 after finding out that TX is the most expensive state to insure a house. Who knew? Well, that was the avg price for TX residents to pay. Better to overestimate than underestimate.

Anyway... Trey called and was told that they weren't giving any quotes or writing any policies for our area. When Trey asked why was that he was told that there was this pesky little thing called a hurricane coming for our area. ha ha... Good point, that didn't even cross our minds even though we knew that the hurricane was going to hit at about a category 1 for us on Saturday afternoon. So, he was told to call back on Monday or Tuesday. Duh for us.

Later that evening, I was talking to my dad and he recommended a different insurance company. Not because what we were told was wrong, but he found a place when he first bought his new house a few years ago that gave him a great deal, and since our cars are only on liability insurace that we wouldn't get any price package breaks anyway by using our same carrier. Of course, it was after office hours and we were coming on the weekend, so we had to wait until Monday.

Friday night I went to Wal-Mart because Trey wanted some ice cream. You would not believe how packed the store was. There was not a loaf of bread, a bag of chips, a jar of peanut butter, or a can/bottle of soda to be bought. People were grabbing clothes off the racks without looking at them and just shoving them into their carts. Many of the evacuating people from Houston and Galveston came up here and to Tyler to wait out Ike. I grabbed the last can of formula for Jacob because I only had enough to last until Sunday morning, and who knows if they'd have it re-stocked by then.

Saturday morning blew in with a strong and steady breeze. Rain started falling and didn't stop until the middle of the night. Lots of small tree limbs and even some larger ones littered the street. The neighbor across the street came home from work to find his "redneck carports" mangled over his cars. (He has a couple of those canvas gazebos in his front yard that he uses to cover his cars) One was even up on the roof. Rain came down in buckets with no slowing and the wind just kept picking up and the gusts were getting pretty strong as well.

Sunday afternoon, we drove by the house that we are hoping to buy to check and see how the drainage did from all the rain. This house is positioned lower than the road, and we wanted to see that the water didn't just pool around the foundation of the house. That's a big no-no when it comes to a va loan and we had written into the contract that we wanted swells cut near the driveway to make sure that doesn't happen as it is. The house was fine. Trey and Kathryn walked around the back of the house to check things out while I sat in the car with Jakey and all of a sudden I see the garage door opening. Out comes Trey and Kathryn.

Apparently, the backdoor was left wide open. Either because of a contractor that was working on the house, or possibly the wind might have made it open after all the wind from the storm. But regardless, it had opened and they were able to get in. I told Trey to hurry up and close it and get back in the car before a neighbor decided to call the cops since that house had been vacant for over a year. Just what you want to see, strange car in the driveway and the garage door wide open.

We then went Lowe's which is about a mile and a half from the house to price blinds. We picked out the ones that we are going to want and are happy to find out that we will be able to do all the windows in the house for less than $600. And not the cheap aluminium blinds that you get at Wal-Mart. The nice bamboo ones that really look nice. Trey wants the wood ones, and I like the white ones, but I'm caving. They will look nice.

We also went and priced some of the upgrades that were already in the house, and we are getting a great deal. Just to change out a regular front door and get the nice one that comes with this house it would be almost a grand. A chunk of change you don't want to have to shell out later.

Which brings us to Monday. Trey went back to work on days this week. He'll have 6 days off after this work week. He called the insurance company my dad recommended. My dad told us that we would probably get a policy at about $1000 a year. Much cheaper than we were estimating as I mentioned earlier in this post. Trey called to tell me it's even better than that. It's less than $600 a year. Of course, size of house factors in and the fact that it is brand new. Oh, and it's technically in the sticks.

Trey also shelled out the $425 for the va appraisal. Yet another necessary expense to put us on the path to home ownership. Once that is set up, and if it appraises for at least what we are to pay for it, then we can set up the home inspection and termite inspection. And yes, we have to pay for that as well. At least another $500that will fly outta the bank account.

We are inching closer and closer each day. It still feels like forever from now. Not to mention the fact that we know that this can be snatched from us at any time. Especially with how volatile the market is behaving right now. The only thing that seems to be going well is the va loans, and this is our one way to get in a house. We just hope that everything holds on until we sign the papers. We are excited, but refuse to get attached after our disappointed attempt at this the last time. Cautiously optimistic.

Offer Made, Declined, Countered, Accepted

We've done it. We have succeeded in finding a house that both Trey and I agree on. Never thought it could happen. Trey with his huge requirements, meaning that there are 4 walls a roof that doesn't leak most of the time, and mine with the house being something that meets our family's needs. What can I say, I'm crazy like that. ha ha

I kid you not when I say that we have looked at every available house in our price range in Athens and the surrounding areas and nothing was promising. Finally, after lowering our sq. ft requirement, we found a newer development in Gun Barrel City that has houses that were built in the last 2 years or so, and have been done very nicely.

So, on Monday afternoon, we traveled out to Gun Barrel and went in 3 houses in this development. The first one was nice, but needed some work, the second was awesome, and just a bit more that we wanted to spend. The third was the cheapest and brand new just like the second, but they made some unfortunate choices in tile color for the floor, and that would take some undoing.

Sooooo... after seeing the disappointing 3rd house, we decided that we would choose door #2. We went straight from the house back to our realtor's office to put in the offer. After looking at price comparisons and considering that state of the housing market, we put in an offer that was nicely in the middle of what the others were going for and the asking price. We left the office cautiously optimistic for several reasons. While we knew that our first offer would not be accepted we were happy that we found something that was in a nice and livable condition. It had everything we needed and even many things that we wanted. Definitely icing on the cake.

Early Tuesday morning, our offer was declined and we were told that the seller/builder would lower the cost $500. Whoop-dee-doo... ha ha... And despite the seller saying that they would take a VA loan which requires that seller to pay the closing costs, he would not do this, and we would have to tack them on to the asking price of the house. Bummer...

After talking with our lender, we knew that we could afford it, but did we really want to do this. Well, as of noon we did not, and decided to put an offer in for the first house we saw instead. Yes, the one that needed a good scrubbing. Trey and I spent a good part of the afternoon crunching the numbers to find a way that we could make all of this work out to our advantage.

At four, we showed up, kids in tow, to the realtor's office once again. Can you say deja vu? Well, it was definitely that. We were met with the realtor telling us that he had just spoken to the realtor of the house we were going to put an offer into and that they had just received a contract on it, and we were back to the drawing board. We were making plans to go out on the hunt again and see the last couple of houses in the neighborhood left for Sunday afternoon. After talking about the other prospects, Trey and I both decided that we really wanted to house that we put the original offer on.

The house is worth the price that was being asked. It had everything that we would want to change in the other houses already done. We figured out that we were fighting with an extra $100 a month by giving the seller the price he wanted. We decided that we'd rather spend the extra $100 on the house we wanted than trying to fix a house over a long period of time to make it look like the house we really wanted in the first place.

We signed all of our amended paperwork for the contract and then drove the 5 minutes home to wait to hear back the next day. We weren't even home 10 minutes when the realtor called Trey to tell him that the seller accepted our offer. While we are happy, we are kicking ourselves just because only we could pay a seller more than his asking price in a buyers market. ha ha...

Now we wait. We have a VA appraisal to go through, various inspections, and we still have to get the financing to finish going through. We have been this far before. Last year we almost bought a house in New Mexico only to have the deal fall through the day of closing, because our lender couldn't get everything worked out despite assuring us for months that we were in good shape and we were ready to go. So, as I said before we are choosing to be cautiously optimistic. If all goes through as planned, we are to close around Wednesday, October 15th.


Here's the listing on the house, and be sure to check out the pics. I'll post more pics as we do inspections, etc.


QUALITY NEW CONSTRUCTION. THIS 3-2-2 BRICK & STONE HAS BEAUTIFUL TILE IN LIVING, KITCHEN, BATHS & UTILITY, BULLNOSE CORNERS, VAULTED CEILING, OPEN DESIGN, PRETTY KITCHEN W/CUSTOM CABINETS & STARION COUNTERTOPS, PANTRY, GORGEOUS MASTER BATH W/JACUZZI TUB & SEPARATE SHOWER, WALK-IN, 10 YEAR WARRANTY.

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