Let the Ride Begin

Well my lovelies, it is time for another life post update. The ride has begun in earnest. We got pre-approved for our FHA loan. With that in hand we can begin our search for a home. One problem, there is not much on the market right now. Our area has all but dried up. The area we want to be in all the homes when they pop up on MLS already have offers on them! First time buyers  and investors/ flippers are getting priority, if you are like us and are working with an FHA loan and not the highest of budget (though just a few short months ago our budget would seem a lot of bigger as there was more inventory and prices were bottomed out), it feels as if you are in a cage with a bunch of lions, tigers and bears(OH MY!) and they are nipping at your heels!

In just the last couple of days my range of emotions have been on a never ending roller coaster ride, up and down and twisting and turning. We went to look at homes that already have offers on them, most older, and most could be our future dream home, it may seem futile to look at homes with offers on the table, but they do fall out from time to time, but according to our agent, it is a very long shot and odds are not great.. but then he seems to change his story from time to time, or my husband hears one thing and it is really another. At any rate, we also went to look at a very tiny little 1948 bungalow. I was very iffy, there was no curb appeal and then there was the fact that it was just under 900 square feet. Now mind you, I have lived in far less square footage, our favorite home when we were first wed and were a young set of parents to a new born was in a 1930's bungalow that was under 700 square feet, 2 bedroom, a jack and jill bath and a small kitchen and laundry space.. we loved it. But perhaps we also romanticize it a lot. So back to the house we looked at, no curb appeal and we walk in and it is musty, despite fresh paint and re-finished redwood floors, it smelled. I could see the cuteness factor for one person, but not two. And that smell, dear goodness! My husband kept giving me the pros and cons and all I could see was cons and all I could remember was my dear dream home we walked away from. I flipped. Maybe it was hormones, or lack of sleep, both plausible, but right in front of our agent I flipped. The "discussion" we were having, and it seemed I was ganged up on by both hubby and agent was that this may be as good as it gets.... WOW! Oh and I was to consider I may have to make it work and give up more of my belongings to do so. I was not a happy lady to say the least and I was ready after one house to say the heck with this!! Boy did I feel cornered and disheartened!

We drove home, and I got on the MLS email and started rejecting everything that was on my wish list as they were all contingencies, all I had heard out of the day was "settle and move forward ..." and " give up on your dream" . I was ignoring my husband and fuming to my friends on facebook in a private chat, and an email came in and I checked it and a new home just three miles from us popped up. It was not old, it was not in the historic district but it would seem like one that would make hubby happy. It was bank owned, partially updated and clean enough from what the photos showed. We drove over and peeked in the windows, I was not going to call our agent to drive 20 minutes again for a second time that day. There was some pros to the house, such as a pretty yard with low maintenance, two baths, a good size and airy kitchen and an attached garage... but cons were location and again the size was just under 1000 square feet so small. There was somethings needing to be fixed and it was a cookie cutter box house and was all beige inside. Worse thing it was what is known as a Home Path Home... that was to be a whole new ball game as we were not approved for that. Hubby and I went back and forth once again on size, curb appeal and settling. It was like riding in bumper cars, only not as fun!

I agreed to look at it with our agent today, and this is just what we did. After a sleepless night and waking early once again we met up with our agent and our daughter who is signing on with us in this and we toured the house. We decided we could live there and make it work, in time we could possibly make it a home and be happy there and make it ours. So we told our agent to call the listing agent and we went home. Hubby and daughter went to work and I went to play online. Not but a couple hours later did our agent come back and tell us that with Home Path/ fannie mae we would only get approved for 120,000 because they are only looking at our daughter's income and not at household, anyway not anywhere near what we needed and not close to what FHA had pre-approved us at based on our daughter and household. So I shot an email back and said I guess that was that and time to move on and wait till the next one popped up. Before I could call my husband, another email came in and our agent said that the bank may accept a FHA offer, and that is where we are at, our agent will be over tonight with papers to sign and submit in the morning and we hope that it is soon enough to NOT have someone else submit an offer before us. To continue with the carnival ride metaphors.. is this a merry go round or what??? If not a merry go round then it is most certainly a roller coaster ride! Watch out for those dips and twists and turns as the ride continues!