House Buying update 6/30

So we found out today that Suntrust, the bank that has the first mortgage, hasn't even looked at our offer that we gave them a week ago. We also found out today that the orignal time frame of 60 days for an approval would be extended. They didn't even bother to give us a time frame this time, just that it would be longer than 60 days.

That just steams me. I really feel bad for the seller. Our offer is the only one that they've had in the 3 months that the house has been on the market. We are pretty sure that the offer would be excepted but we can't wait the extra time that it may take to get Suntrust to approve the sell. We have to be out of our apartment at the end of August and the First Time Home Owner credit expires at the end of November.

Oh and Suntrust took a nice 3 BILLION dollar bail out. So Daniel and I are paying their bills and they can't even look at our offer.

So far we've limited ourselves to Oakleaf Plantation because we love the area, it's also a nice half way point between my parents out in Fleming Island and Daniel's on the Westside. It has to be townhouse since my parents have trouble walking up stairs which limits them from visiting me now. It has to be in a USDA are for our loan type. We've been approved for more but mentally we don't want to get any higher than 105k

I'm just so tired with this whole buying a house thing. We've got 2 other properties that we like and we are going to try and view them this Friday.

Good Pillow Night

This is one of those....wow they are kind of said stories.....

Daniel and I have about 4 pillows on our bed. Only one of those pillows is good. It's a memory foam pillow that is just great. The rest are normal stuffing pillows. They are old and therefor flat as a pancake. They offer no support and have to be balled up to make them decent.

So each night we rotate who has the good pillow. That person sleeps well the other person gets to toss and turn. That person does not sleep well.

Tonight is Daniel's Good Pillow Night.

The longs about short sales.

Since Daniel and I currently have an offer on a townhouse that is a short sale I've been reading everything that I can about the subject. It's really kind of sad. A short sale is when the home owner is selling the house for less than the mortgage with the hopes that their lender will forgive the difference. In the last two weeks I've read almost every single website that has the word short sales on it. The people who are doing this are trying to avoid being foreclosed on. It's better credit wise for a short sale to happen then for a foreclosure . From the seller's end it's a great way IF they can get their bank to approve on it.

This is where the problems come in. Banks are reportedly dragging their feet on approving offers that buyers are putting in on the houses. The sellers agree to the price, forward that to their bank and then the bank does nothing. Most of the time they sit on the offer for anywhere from 2 weeks to months. There are horror stories about people waiting on a house for over a year. Waiting on the bank to say yes or no. I don't understand that. Why would you want to not just sell so you can get some money? Your not going to get a lot but it's better than doing nothing and foreclosing.

This is the nervous part for a buyer. We found a house in an area we love. We like the neighborhood, good schools, close to shopping with amenities. The same style townhouse would normally sell for 30k more than this one. We've pretty much love this house. Our agent and their agent feel pretty strongly that the bank with approve out offer but they can't guarantee anything.

So now we wait. It's so hard to just wait...I want to buy things. I want to decorate. I want to get the things to change it from a house to a home.

He's just not that into you....

I remember when this book came out. I was in love with Sex in the City. It's wonderful writing, it's realistic idea about how frank and honest women are in their friendships and about how women viewed relationships. I was having a string of bad relationships. Horrible relationships. Along came this book that had a buzz around it. It was simple, it was easy to understand and it was frank and honest just like the show. When I read it, it was like all the light bulbs in the house had all turned on at once. It made sense. All the dates that went no where, all the calls that never came and all the games that I've ever had to play. They weren't games they were just men's lazy and childish ways of dumping me. I thought back to all the guys who had ever said one thing while their actions said another.

I became ruthless. You didn't call? Thank you for playing, have a nice day. Have to cancel our date, okay well I'll be seeing you. I grew as a person. I hung out with friends and filled my days with things.

Along came my husband. We became friends, dated, had two speed bumps and finally Daniel told me he was into me.

I guess I said all that to say this:

1) Ladies if your single, read this book. I fully intend to hand this book to any daughters I have when they start to date.

2) God I love my husband. Sitting next to him reminded me even when we have problems I still love him more than word can express.

Ladies if he's a man worth his salt, he will let you know he's into you. Unless not HE'S just not into YOU. Nothing wrong with you or him, just you weren't meant to be.

The sellers excepted our offer......

I'm so excited. We just heard from our agent that the sellers have excepted our offer. I'm so happy and excited. It's one step closer to closing the deal. Since the house is a short sale now comes the hard part. We have to wait to hear from the bank who has the mortgage with the seller that they except the offer too. This could range from 2 weeks to forever. I know place like thenest.com that have had people waiting to get into their dream place since February.

I'm not going to worry about that now. I'm just happy that we are now one step closer to our house.

1st step

So our first steps into the rheum of home ownership were hard. I got caught up in the idea of buying a house. I gave my heart away quickly. Then the rug was taken out from under me. I cried and then moved on.

A lot has changed since then. We kept moving forward. We went on Thursday and signed the paperwork to start the loan. That was fun. We should hear back about that soon. So with that under our belt we went and viewed more houses. We saw a couple that we liked and then there was one that we LOVED. It was a little bigger than our original place that we liked. It was about 10k more than the first one. But it had less to do in terms of paint, flooring and it was newer. It has a nice master suite with a bath tub and shower. It's more money but it's a little better than the first one. The community is a little better and it's within walking distance of the schools.(Which will be good if we stay long enough for babies to go to school). It's still in Oakleaf Plantation. We took some video and I'll post it later.

So we went home and talked about the house talked it over. Went to church and prayed on it. We felt like it was a good idea. We both felt calm over it. So we decided to make an offer. So we signed the paperwork for our offer last night.

Since the house is a short sale we have to get it approved by the seller and the seller's bank. I'm not worried about the seller just a little worried for the seller's bank. Our offer is a fair amount. We are pretty much just asking them to pay our closing. So the bank it's really losing very much. This is where the waiting comes in. Most banks since they might have so many short sales are taking FOREVER to reply to offers. Our agent says the shortest she's done is 2 weeks(We'd LOVE that to happen)but on average is 45-60 days.

So now we wait. We wait for a reply from the seller and the bank. We wait to find out if we're officially approved for the loan.

So I hope everything works out.

Sooooo...

So last night was kinda rough. After losing out on the house that we were interested in I was asking Daniel why do the wicked prosper? Him being the good head of the household that he is found a Bible study on the subject and tried to use that as a balm over my wounds. It didn't work.

It left me wondering more about why God lets his followers struggle while people who shun him have rewards. Daniel tried to make me understand that His followers will have rewards in heaven but that doesn't seem fair. Since God is so powerful shouldn't he reward good behavior and punish bad? Isn't that at the heart of all fathers for their children. Why then does the opposite happen here on Earth. Shouldn't those who follow be rewarded?

I'm struggling right now. I have two things that I cry out to God for. First being a child. I've been wanting a baby since Daniel and I got married. I don't understand why this hasn't happened for us. There are people in the world who don't want children and then abort them and then their are people in the world who have like 21 kids and aren't married to the children's mother. Therefor blessing them with children through sin.

Second being a home. I don't have fancy taste. Something simple to call my own. A place to paint as I want. To have a bigger kitchen and a pantry. To not be cramped, to have a place for visitors to stay if they want to come. I don't want a million dollar home I want a 85,000 home. Yet nothing is working out as it should. We are struggling to find gift money. We had problems with a computer while trying to pre qualify ourselves, all the places we looked at are gone. It seems like nothing is moving ahead.

I don't know why? Daniel read Job to me last night. Trying to explain that we may never know why. That God know why and we have to trust him. I don't know...maybe that is a sign of Daniel's level of faith compared to mine. I'm just tired of getting beat down. I'm just tired of not being rewarded. Maybe I'm being punished for questioning God's will.

Moving forward....part 4

So our dream place somehow magically got 3 offers on it since Thursday. I'm so disappointed. I am about to cry. I got my hopes up and really thought that maybe just maybe we would get this. If we prayed hard enough we would get this. If we worked hard enough we would get this. Now those dreams are gone. Someone else will be living in my dream.

I'm just so sad. I've been looking at all the townhouses in that neighborhood and they are all either too expensive or have multiple offers on them. I guess this is my mistake, I got ahead of myself. I started dreaming about a place I didn't own. I picked out paint samples for a place I didn't own. I showed my friends a place I didn't own.

I'm so tired of this process already. The process seems to set people up to fail. Daniel and I could be approved for a house up to 150k but because we don't want to get in over our heads we are staying close to what we can afford to pay. Doing that prices us out all the decent places or gives us a house to small for our needs. So that forces people to buy more than they can afford.

Daniel wants to keep going but I think it's a waste of our time, our lenders time and our agents time. We wont find anyplace decent for our range so why even try. I guess this is my last moving forward....unless Daniel wants to write.

Moving forward.....3

So we went and looked at the townhouses this weekend. We picked the one that we really liked. So this week we're (hopefully) going to do the loan paper work, get our gift money and then make an offer on the place.

So we just have a couple of things that we need to go our way. We have a couple of people that might be gifting us the money needed to get the house. I'm asking people to pay for those people. Just pray to have them see inside themselves to see if they want to give us that money and to release them from any guilt they might have if they can't.

Just pray for our lender Ellen that she's got every thing she need and pray for our under rider that God gives them the wisdom that they need to make the decision that God gives them.

Pray for the bank that owns the house that they will except our offer.




Here's a little video about our(hopefully) place.

Moving forward part 2

It's been about 2 days since I wrote that last blog about Daniel and I trying to buy a house. This has been the most stressful 2 days in my life.

I used to work prior to this with a CU in town with doing 2nd mortgages . I am fairly familiar with the process.

We currently have two lenders we are working with.

Lender A is trying for either an FHA loan or a USDA loan. They are different in that the FHA does 97% financing and the USDA does 100% financing. Both are eligible for 8k tax incentive.

Lender B is trying to do a FHA loan with Florida Assist. Florida Assist is a 2nd mortgage bond that is zero percent interest, non-amortizing second mortgage loans for 10k. Using Florida Assist makes us ineligible for the 8k tax incentive.


Both lenders are trying to talk over our heads and telling us to take different class(both costing money).Lender A's class is for the SHIP program with is the State of Florida down payment assistants that is given out at the local level. They are currently out of money for this year. Lender B's class is for the Florida Assist program.


Here are what I'm confused about:

Closing cost. I know that we can negotiate to have the seller pay for the closing cost. We may not have any room for negotiation the 4 townhouses we are looking at are short sales. But in this market we might be able to talk them into it. So we might not need money for closing at all.


I know that this process is long and not easy but it just seems like it's a lot harder than it should be.

So *sigh* just got to keep swimming....

Moving forward.....

So Daniel are trying to be adults and buy our first home. We found a perfect townhouse in a perfect location. We went about everything correctly. Got a copy of our credit. Went and found a lender who was willing to work with us. We actually have two lenders working to get us into the house. Daniel makes enough with his salary alone and we have little debt. The place is a great value and even the lender says it's a good deal.

Now we are on to getting a realtor. Everything is positive.

Then there is the negative. The costing cost. As of Nov 2008, Former President Bush signed into law to make it illegal for the seller to help with the closing cost. Also gone are down payment assistance that used to be able to help with closing and down payments. So Daniel and I are are perfect borrowers. No debt, good income and good credit. Perfect townhouse. Perfect location. But we might not be able to get our house......all because of $2700.70 that is needed at closing.

It's so hard to be so close.

Since we just got married we both spent our savings on our wedding because we paid for it all (the wedding) in cash.

So I'm asking my few readers out there to pray for us and if your not religious send good thoughts and vibes towards us.