Here we go!

So back in March 2011 Keith was officially promoted as the maintenance manager out at his work which gave us the financial ability to start house hunting! About a month later we got set up with one of my high school girl friends sister, Felicia, who is in that business. Now if I went in detail the journey that has been the past 8 months now, we would be here forever so I will try to summarize the best I can and I'm sure even that will be longer than most will want to read. Either way, here we go. I will skip the first 4 1/2 months and hundreds of houses we saw we had only put offers on about 4 at this point but not really anything we were smitten by. Then the fateful day: Friday August 26th, new houses were submitted in to our profile and there it was: $234,900 3 bed 2 1/2 bath, 2 story, 1892 square feet. Fire place in the living room (NOT the kitchen like so many of the other homes we saw) a dinning room, a decent size kitchen, sunken living and family rooms, decent looking floors. Definitely needing some remodel but not bad. Google maps: good location for Keith's commute. Bulldog Sex Predators: no one with in a couple mile radius. I was STOKED to say the least. I text Keith at work saying we found the house! Little did we know what would follow... We went that afternoon to look at this house and another one that had come up as well. I just kept saying "I can't get excited about this house knowing that 'Rusty' is coming up" (we named the houses by the street they were on to keep track of them) Felicia had found out that the house had just fallen out of contingency after 6 days, I wonder why?? Well we soon found out. The siding was rotting away, straight up holes, how ever the frame was still strong and fine. The carpet had been torn up from the bottom of the stairs up and through all the second story how ever the tack strips and moldy carpet pads were left. The master bed had molding in the corner where the bad siding was (we determined from poor flashing and the gutter falling off) the bathrooms upstairs were moldy all the windows are single pane so they came with their special issues. yadda yadda long story we found out why the house had been on the market since April, had started at 280k and was still not sold. We put an offer in at 205 and decided to see what they would say, couldn't hurt right? After talking to Keith's dad we realized that this house was doable, the main structure of the house was fine and to keep pursuing the house, even be ok with upping our bid if and when need be. The listing agent got back to that evening saying that they will talk to the owner and get back to us next week but that they couldn't possibly take less than 220. Well, that was the Friday before labor day.... we figured it wouldn't be until Wednesday. They kept saying one more day, tomorrow, by the end of the week, by Monday all that week and then they stopped communicating with us. Felicia, bless her, called them every day for about 2 weeks with no avail. We figured that they were using our offer as a pon for other people who were on the fence about it. We also found out that the person who was in contingency with the house for 6 days was denied by the bank because of all the work the house needed. We stopped calling them hoping they might come to us, nope. So I got desperate, all the other homes we had seen since weren't comparing. I made up a fake name "Mindy Lewis" with an accompanying email and contacting the listing agent through his website inquiring about 'Rusty'. Within an hour he had written me back and later that day a different agent contacted me about viewing the house. They said nothing about another offer and that the house had JUST fallen out of escrow (first lie, it had been back on the market for a month. He also made it sound like they had been in escrow for an extended period of time and not 6 days) I forgot to ask that agent, Dave, to then bring the inspection report so I emailed Brian, the listing agent, about it and to this day have not heard from him again. During this time Felicia called them again and finally had to get her boss to call them and they said that the house was un available for financing. I met with Dave the next week he cleverly brought me through the house strategically so that I saw as much of the good before the bad. I also got out of him that I could low ball and that the last offer was 215 and could offer that no problem, even though they apparently couldn't take anything less than 220. Also I confirmed 3 times with him that financing was available and he even gave me the name and contact info to person who was dealing with the special loan that was needed with this fixer. I asked for the inspection report which he said they did not have. Felicia found one on file but it would have 2 weeks to get and they still "didn't have a copy" Needless to say I went straight to Felicia beaming ear to ear at my success which only got bigger as she told me that the loan officer was her friend that she had worked with in the past. What came next was a lot of back and forth and craziness but what came about was the only way to get this house was to go through this one type of loan which made us hire a contractor to do the work (ugh! money right there) and the contractors bill couldn't exceed 28k. Yadda yadda some one with all cash came in and put an offer on the home so obviously we were booted out and right when we were getting some where!!! In the next couple of days the inspection report came in and it was estimated at $44k to fix. Depression set in for a couple of days then another property came up, smaller house but other great features including an acre of land. It needed a septic system but it was priced to do so. Of course we saw it on a Friday and had the whole weekend and that Monday was Columbus day so banks were closed. We tried to find financing because banks don't finance houses with that kind of septic issue. Finally Tuesday morning we found a way and literally 2 second later we found out that an all cash offer with a second all cash back up offer was accepted. UGH! Lost another, it was almost getting comical, almost. Then with in that hour of loosing that house 'Rusty' fell out of contingency!!!!!!! That was Tuesday. Friday October 21st we had our contractor out at the house to write up a bid. When 'Rusty' came back up they attached a pest report, yes the same listing agents that didn't have one to give us, posted a different report than we had that was estimated at $11k to fix. Well, Wednesday the following week our bid was in (about 20k) with our new offer, asking price, which was now 219,900. Thursday late afternoon we were informed an all cash offer higher than asking was submitted. We literally laughed. We had to! Friday late afternoon almost exactly 24 hours later the loan lady called Felicia saying, don't inform your clients yet but the bank is sick of these all cash offers falling out and was still favoring us over the all cash! Monday morning it was confirmed and we were starting the process! Lots and lots of craziness with the loan and paper work. Our bid seemed to keep going up because the bank was making us pretty much get the house to be show room quality, I mean are base boards really necessary? So, so frustrating because the bid gets tacked on to our loan so we pay taxes and interest on it, also upping our monthly payment AND then we had to have a mortgage insurance of about $170 a month! Yes let me just die here. (thankfully after things settle down and the house is "fixed" we can refi and get rid of the mortgage insurance) Well we don't have the keys yet BUT papers are signed, money is wired and the sign is out of the yard. We should get the keys with in the week! So yes after 8 months, 336 houses, lies, a fake name and literally an emotional roller coaster we should be home owners. I will post pictures and updates through out the process here and those entries should not be nearly as long as this one! haha thanks for reading!