The Saga continues.

I am mainly adding this post to talk about our house...and I forgot to include a few pictures to the last post, so since the blog is not worthy without pictures, I'll add those too.  Here is our housing saga...

December 11, 2010.  I see a house online, it looks ok - I'll go look, if nothing else to check it off the list.  Eva and I go with Ron, our realtor.  Hmm, I like it, I call Eli, we decide to come back at night.  He likes it, it is in great condition, a few things for a honey-do list, and a few cosmetic things that we'd like to change but overall, we found a charming house, it has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a nice kitchen, 2 living rooms, a pool, a big garage etc etc.  There is even a cactus jungle in the front!  "We'll make an offer" we say.  "It's a short sale" they say.  "Great, that means it'll be a short sale!"  we exclaim.  "No", they tell us, "usually they take longer, maybe even 6 months but that's the worst case scenario", chuckling with laughter.  "Well, it's worth it" we say, confident that it'll just be a month or two - worst case scenarios aren't common!  Plus, although they say the market is flooded with homes, they forgot two important details, the quality of the home and the price!  For the homes and prices we were wanting, it was slim pickins, so this is a gem!  We submit our offer to the owners, they accept within 2 days.  "Easy Peasy!  6 months?  ha!"   We were quite nervous we'd be closing on Christmas!  Oh, how that would be interesting, having to work it around our IL plans...December comes and goes, nope, didn't happen on Christmas, "it's ok we were warned" I chuckle and we patiently wait for the bank to accept or counter our price.  Then come January, oh man, they countered our offer, but not by much - we accept!  haha beat that short sale system, it's only been a month and we've already agreed on our price with the bank!  All the paperwork is in and they say it's just a few days out, let's get our lender ready!  Immediately, I get all of our paperwork in while Eva is practically neglected - sorry honey, you can't eat I have to get everything in NOW so we can close ASAP!  We debate, should we give our 30 day moving notice to the apartments?  I call and ask what they think.  They suggest waiting for the purchase contract because once we give our notice they will rerent our apartment and we have to be out.  I roll my eyes at the thought of things not going smoothly, but I decide not to push it and we'll wait, even though I know it'll happen 'by the end of the week'.  The time ticks by, hello February. oh the other realtor tells us it's any day now, but we're going to Florida on February 11th - uh oh, how funny if we have to close in Florida - we'd better get all of our ducks in a row to make everything go smoothly!  Florida comes and goes....nothing.  March comes, That's it, we'll keep our offer in on this house but we're going to keep looking.  We find a lot of duds, and finally a house that has a great neighborhood, lots of potential, and lots and lots of repairs needed.  We are up to the challenge, though.  We submit a big time lowball offer, it needs soooo much work!  Our realtor tells us it's a longshot, the bank counters - they went down $500.  ha!  we say, we're not willing to buy it for that price eventually we settle on a price that is 20,000 below their asking price - we totally got a steal.  The deal was approved, by the end of the week we will have our purchase contract!  We go to home depot, construction outlets, search Craigslist, compare prices and have on the DIY network constantly, we find some kitchen ideas for the renovation, get our finances in order, and patiently wait for the 'end of the week' to get the purchase contract.  We know we'll get it, the price has been approved and it's a foreclosure it'll go fast!  The week ends, nothing, the next week ends, nothing, the next week ends, nothing.  Turns out that once the price was not approved by everyone after all.  We weren't willing to pay more, and so we let it go.  I really do feel like we dodged a bullet though, it needed a lot of work and it had a lot of potential, but we didn't have the budget for all of that potential since I'd want it all done right away.  Eli immediately starts the hunt again online and Eva and I go preview his finds during the day so we can weed out the bad ones - it's a nightmare, there is nothing!  The next day, our cactus jungle house starts calling our name again!  The paperwork that the bank was waiting on from the bankruptcy court has apparently been received by the bank's negotiator and they are ready to give us a purchase contract!  But you know what, we are holding a grudge, so we lower our offer, we say it's from the declining condition of the property (even though it looks just as good as it always had, aside from the pool being cloudy).  They take a few days, counter it slightly and we agree to a lower price than the original that we agreed upon, everyone is happy.  Ok, now it's May 11th, purchase contract received.  We have to close by June 7th, our lender says we'll close by May 31st - 30 days notice is in to our apartment, we have to by out by June 12th, that gives us two weeks of moving overlap and a cushion in case the closing gets delayed a day or two we are good to go!!  We make it to May 27th, go in to the title company, sign our papers, pay our down payment and closing costs.  They say to prepare ourselves because the owners still have to sign, and then the bank has to approve it (just a formality, don't worry) and then we will get the keys, so just a couple more days.  The owners sign on Tuesday the 31st, we know we won't close that day, the bank will take a day or two.  What's that you say?  Bank of America has had the wrong department working on this deal for the past 6 months and never realized it?  Now there is a new negotiator?  Grrreat, how long will this take now?  Phew, a day later the new negotiator contacts the owners' realtor, she says we can close immediately, right after we get the bankruptcy documents from the court.  Umm, the same documents that we waited 6 weeks for back in February/March/April?  Umm, Yah, who knows.  Still waiting for that question to be answered.  We still don't have them, still don't own a house, we have to be out of ours by the 12th.  Our realtor contacts the other realtor and they both agree that we can do a prepossession, luckily the owners loved us and want to be as helpful as possible.  So we are moving into the house this weekend with a pre-possession agreement.  Basically we treat it like we rent/own however you want to look at it, but if for some reason the deal falls through then we have to get out obviously.  We are taking the risk.  Yes we may have to move again if it falls through, but we have to be out of here by the 12th anyway and would have to move somewhere, and then move again if it goes through, so we'll see what happens.  Maybe, just maybe, by 'the end of the next week' we'll own our house.  But either way, we'll be living there next week.  Eva is napping, as soon as she wakes up we are going over to clean the house before we start bringing stuff over :) 

she's always up on her knees now.  not standing yet though

Let's play, "keep eva away from Mr. B"...ohh but when there is a will there is a way.

distraction time!

Ok, that's it.  We hope you all have a great weekend.  Keep us in your thoughts as we move in over the next week.  Luckily, the hottest it's supposed to get is 106 on Sunday, otherwise we'll have 'cooler' weather, only in the upper 90's and lower 100's.