Try, Try Again

It is Monday, so time for a new post and update. I wish I had the energy to blog more, and more to blog about, but life for me right now is a jumble of stress on so many levels and in so many areas of my life, it is truly all I can do to not just stay in bed or on the couch and either sleep or read. So I hope you will stick with me though all this. Those of you here for the pretty vintage photos, if you are on FB, my fan page has a regular influx of those. To my Twitter pals, well the FB page does link there, and if you are missing me being there chatting, I do miss you and I apologize, you are all in my heart and on my mind daily! 

My Mom said today that this blog was a sanity saver, and she said I was good at it as well so that was a bonus. That made me smile. Truly having a place to just let all that is going on in my life, no matter how big or small and no matter what it was from going wine tasting, to a family celebration or simply sharing a great book I discovered, it has been a sanity saver and a true blessing.  It may not garnish as many readers... just because it says 170 followers does not mean that they all are still reading, that is just part of life, people come and go. I got over getting comments long ago, though I do appreciate all the ones that do happen. I see my FB fan page growing daily and I have come to terms as well with that, it is not based on my blog posts, but just that people like pretty images, and there is a lot of those... so no false ego boosts on my part that is for sure. I am finding out lately that numbers really do not matter, both in the blog world, the friendship count or the amount of dollars you bid on a house. 

All this gives me a headache! 

Ok, ok, you knew I would get around to an house hunt update. If you have been keeping track, the market here where I live sucks. There is nearly zero inventory, there is mostly short sales and a few bank owned and most of those have offers on them before they even hit the MLS, thanks to some creative and fast acting agents. The few homes that do not have contracts always end up in a bidding war. Sometimes lasting for weeks and others a day or two. A house hits the MLS and in one day there is a handful of offers. Then someone or many someones as a collective walk in with an all cash offer, needing no appraisal and that trumps us little people with FHA's each and every time. It just is a fact. Another fact is apparently the average number of homes one puts an offer on and looses to a cash buyer or a larger bid is 18-20 homes... so it can take months to get an offer accepted, but then you move onto see if the offer matches the appraisal and well you could find out it does not and move on if you do not have more cash to bring to the table or if you are buying a short sale home or bank owned, known as REO's then it could be months, usually 6 till you actually hear anything and then have to go through the appraisal and with FHA all the repairs as well before you become a happy homeowner. As one friend put it, by then you are not so happy and you really are just so over it you wonder why you tried in the first place. We have not been at it that long and are no where near the average numbers and I am already over it. 

So many hurdles to jump over!!
It is exhausting! 

Since last Monday, we have pulled our offer on a very nice home that was actually very close to where we reside now, but it was going to be a very long shot and one race of bidding wars we knew was unlikely we would win. We had put an offer in on another darling house, complete with rose gardens and a fountain already in the yard and a cozy fireplace in the living room. It was an older home, but not as old as most I pine over, it was a 1958 ranch, but it was charming and in a great neighborhood. It would mean being further from our daughters, but closer to my husbands work and I could indeed see a life there, a very nice one. We had put a bid in that was at the tippy top of our loan amount and would mean scrambling for cash right and left should we win the bid and some hands on repairs of whatever the FHA appraisal flagged as needing to be fixed, but it would be worth it.. that was Sunday, by Monday we had lost it, so with pulling the other offer, that was two homes in one day. Gut wrenching is an understatement. With that occurring and a deep unease of our current agent's mind set, willingness to work hard or think outside the box, and well after a few unprofessional comments (crossing that line between agent and friend that was already a gray zone)and it seeming as if I was the only one working hard at finding homes, and staying positive, we cut our ties with him. 

As fate would have it, the very agent we had early on cut ties with out of fear of her being new to being an agent, perhaps not ready to handle us being FHA and perhaps even too busy to have time to really devote to us, well she saw a post I made on FB stating all that we had already been through and sent me a very sweet private message, after a few more back and forth, I begged her to give us a second chance and ate humble pie with a side of crow and she kindly took us back. Within a day we were looking at homes, looking at new options and areas and given some hope that it could happen, even if we would have to try and try again to make it so. We were back in the race and though not able to see a finish line, it was a new start and I was eager to get out there.  We looked at a home that we were very quick to cross off and on my own I looked at the options of modular home living as an option. The next day we saw another home, not right. Then another and it had potential, a lot, so much so we put an offer in. We even had a chance to chat with the owner a bit. Then it was off to see a modular home, one where you would own the land. Placed in the middle of a lot of homes, but still 20 minutes from town, we are not ruling it out as a back up, but since it would require a different loan all together, it may not be an option we have to weigh... we are waiting to hear if we can get such a loan however  before giving up.

Back in the race to find a home. 

The current offer is on another 1958 home, not sure it would be called a ranch, reminds me more of a cottage, with it's peaked roof over the front door, shelves for pots of flowers and a picket fence though in need of repairs in places and it's flowering trees in the yard. It has had a lot of updating (though not enough that there would not be some more needed), and aside from seeing we would be buying new windows to replace the old very quickly, we did not see a lot of things FH would flag as needing to be repaired, though there is a few things and we are prepared to get in there with friends and hopefully have the funds to make it happen so the house would be funded. It is not everything I desire, and yet has things I never knew I did desire. It has potential to put our own stamp on over time and the location is one I truly do not mind in the least, though once again not close to our daughters, nor the places I like to go for my nails and hair to be done, I once again can see a life there. Like the other homes, we are at the tippy top of our budget and with needing to do repairs, pay closing costs and buy appliances and the things needed to care for a yard again, not to mention getting out of our lease here were it to go quicker than originally thought, it means begging our friends to help us out with both labor and perhaps money and using our credit cards we just paid off... not a place I wish to visit, but what may be the only chance of getting into a home that does not need life support in the form of a 203k rehabilitation loan attachment. I am not going to say I am hopeful, I am going to say only that I am hoping it all works out. 

Our agent is on the phone daily, sending
emails and sending out physical letters to
try and get us into a home in the near future. 

We are now sitting and waiting, offers will apparently not be looked at until two days from now. We are anticipating the worse and praying for the best.. to beat the odds and have everything go smoothly and to still not be so jaded (and poor) that we wonder why we did it all in the first place. There are no other homes popping up right now, and if this home bid gets beaten out, and we do not qualify for a modular home, we will just have to sit tight and hope more homes soon start to appear and are worthy to bid on and not just be settling...on one hand that is an easier option, but on the other, I am not ready to live with that. All we can do is to try and then try again and hope that we end up on the top, the winner of a bid on a house we can call a home.