It's Officially Official!

Yup, folks!  We signed our life away today.  After two hours and a mountain of paperwork, we are now officially homeowners.

Awesomest. Feeling. Ever.

Once the papers were signed, work was finished (I was supposed to be off today), and myriad errands were run, I scurried over to start painting.  I had (and I kid you not) 7 paint samples queued up and ready.  Once I was finished, my kitchen looked like this:

Green, anyone?

I (with help from husband) settled on the color Grape Vine.  It's the big box at the bottom-right.  Close-up:

Behr - Grape Vine

However, the flash made the color a lot lighter than it really is.  So, i guess you'll just have to wait until the kitchen is painted to see what it looks like.  :)

We also made our first official change!  While I didn't take a before photo, this was essentially what our front and back doors looked like:

Gold = Fail.  Round = Fail.  All of the effing doorknobs in this house are like this, and it's terrible.   However, the entry doors are at least updated!

Gorgeous.  Love!  Both doors have double-lock entry, so don't go trying to break in, people. 

More changes will be to come!

Sound the trumpets!

We got news back from the mortgage broker that our loan was approved.  We're set for May 5th closing date.  :)

An update to my previous post:  After numerous (awesome) suggestions offline and on the blog, we've decided on white azaleas.  Initially these were said to not grow well in zone 9 but did well in zone 10 (southern Florida), but there are TONS of websites about the Houston area being a thriving zone for azaleas, so this one is a definite thumbs up.  Plus they bloom three times a year, which is great!  I don't want a plant that flowers only in spring.

These look really nice in a row (these are staggered with red/white) along the front of a home, so I can really see bringing these all the way around the front of the house on the left side and if they're cheap enough, planting them around the sides as well.

So thanks for everyone's input!  I'll have a follow-up for the rest of the flowers I'm thinking of planting later.  :)

I'm all in

So after weeks of "I need this, can you submit this, why is that on your bank account? Why is this number different? Why is there a two week gap in your employment history here? Can i please have a blood and stool sample for our records", we're finally finished.  Paperwork is in.  From here on out, we're just waiting on underwriting.

The appraisal went great.  Survey is done.  Literally, we've paid almost all of our money (save final closing costs) and every step of the process is finished.  But we STILL don't know if we'll even get approved.  So I am just sitting here, worrying every day, wondering.

I am trying to stay positive, but with 50+ hour work loads (with really stressful items on my plate), tons of chasing down papers from eons ago to fax off to the mortgage guy, and being questioned on every breath I take along the way, I'm just ready for the process to be over.  Husband and I both are just completely over it.  At this point, despite how much we love the house, if something comes up and we don't get it (the only reason would be that the underwriters were complete jerkfaces), we're both ready to just say "Eff it.  We'll rent."  If we get it, we'll both be very excited, but I just don't have any more energy to devote to the process.  I can't even think about it without my blood pressure growing.

So, you know, send out plenty of positive thoughts our way!  My gut says we'll get it, but I can't focus on it right now.  Feel free to send good tidings our way. 

Thanks to all who are reading this!

PS - New photo from the appraisal, after all the paint is done!

Banks are Evil

Like we didn't already know that.

I'm NOT going to go on a rant.  I'm NOT going to go on a rant.  I promise.  So to keep that (extreme, boiling over) rage to a minimum, I will keep this short.

I got pre-approved with Bank of America back in December.  If you don't know already, lenders are really big on "two consecutive years of work history" thing.  It's a primary prereq for home purchases.  But since, prior to my current position, I was technically "unemployed" while writing a novel, I don't have that two years of consecutive work experience.  Still, BoA said, "oh no problem!  I mean, it may be an issue to the underwriter, but we can just write a letter of explanation and everything should be alright."  I was even offered by one of the Big Bosses of the company to write a letter on my behalf, and the bank was like, "OMG! Okay!!".

So we get the offer, submit everything, do the inspection, and I send everything in to the bank.  For two days, the loan officer dodges me.  Doesn't respond to emails.  Then suddenly he writes me back 1.4 minutes (no joke) before he leaves for the day, and says, "Sorry, there's little- to no-chance we can approve you without two years work history."

...

It doesn't matter that I've been working in a similar industry for years upon years.  It doesn't matter that writing a novel is technically an asset, as it has the potential (if published) to net you future money.  it doesn't matter that I EXPLAINED ALL OF THIS THREE MONTHS AGO, and he was like "Thumbs up!!!!!!  Yay!!!!".  Now?  "No way, dudette.  You're screwed."

So, after a fit of rage, and cursing, and arguing that, you know, why does work history fall at the top of the list?  Shouldn't my credit history, rental history, or you know, my debt to income ratio be the most important things?  If these are all great, shouldn't work history (especially with a letter from Company Big Wig saying, "we will hunt this girl down if she tries to leave because we love her and will never let her go away") be kind of a wash?

But whatever.  So I call our realtor, verging on tears.  She's like, "call a mortgage broker.  I know this guy."

Y'all?  This guy is awesome.  He asked for everything except for drawn blood, but he's getting the job done.  (I hope.)  And while the interest rate is a teensy bit higher (dude's gotta make his money), it works out to less than $4/mo more than the other mortgage payment with BoA.  And I'm willing to pay that to actually get approved by someone who has a lick of sense.


Maybe if I get like four people from the company to vouch for me that I'm never leaving my current employer because they are awesome and they're like family to me, that it'll help?

So, wish me luck. Here's hoping we actually get financed.  WE WANT THIS HOUSE.  Must have.  No kidding.

Inspections and Insights

So, a little backstory.

When we put the offer on the house, we did a total low-ball offer.  I mean, we offered list price, contingent on the fact that they fixed the AC unit (a few grand) and replaced all the rotted wood around the entire house (another few grand, and endless hours of labor by doing it outside), and repainted all the wood the same color.

We expected them to come back with "y'all are out of your minds", but they actually said okay.  We were shocked.

We went over to check out the progress Friday evening.  The inspector had just come, and we got a mostly-green light on the house.  Most of the damage he detected, we already knew about (doors not on hinges, window screens not on their windows, insulation installed backward in the attic, no gutters, the AC (which hasn't been fixed yet), etc.  The only thing that wasn't cosmetic or easy/cheap to fix was an electrical port problem that I don't quite understand, and we don't know the scope of the cost to fix it yet, if it even needs to be fixed immediately.  That's being investigated at present, so we'll see.

Anyway, onward to the pictures of updates!  I don't have many 'before' pics of the outside where we can do a side-by-side comparison, but I will say that, even though they weren't finished painting when we came over, it looks SO much better.  Like, they basically ended up repainting and refinishing the whole house.

Before, clearly.

And now...

Yes, that's our motorcycle!

You probably can't tell the difference, but in person it just looks so much better.  The wood is fresh and new and the paint is all shiny.  :)

Midway through the paint process.  Time for some blue trim!

 

Brand new, all the way around.

 Here's my one good before and after photo, though this hanging-down part was kind of a theme throughout the lining of the house:

Before...

And after!

That side-by-side shows you the newness of the paint in the after-photo.  That blue is richer and deeper now, and looks great!

The painters destroyed most of this plant, so it's probably gonna have to go.

We didn't even take a picture of this area before, because it had the busted-up mailbox and a whole bunch of trash laying out.  I guess the bonus of painters was that they doubled as trash-collectors!  I'm already envisioning a nice potted plant here (there's not enough room for a bench).

And some flowers here:

And here:

There's not a lot of work done around the back, but I took pictures, so you will look at them!

Husband inspecting the wood work.  Please note the patio door into our master bath...

Thanks for breaking the half-fence...

 

The backyard tree situation isn't that amazing, but it's at least promising.  There's one corner full of dead palm trees that we'll have to dig up, and the above tree that's starting to flower.  Our initial thought was that it was a Dogwood, but upon further inspection from looking at the flowers, my research tells me it's a Washington Hawthorne.

The name sounds very presidential.

I will spare you the twelve pictures of the porch (which will also eventually have to go, particularly since it's resident to Carpenter Bees).

So now, we just have to get a reasonable estimate from the inspector on what he thinks it'll cost to fix the electrical box-or-whatever problem.  Once we determine that, we have to either renegotiate the cost and do A WHOLE NEW CONTRACT, sigh....or we can just proceed as planned.  If we don't push asking for more things to be repaired (and I'm not inclined to push since they're already fixing other stuff and probably won't fix anything else), we can move forward with having the appraiser come.  If s/he gives the thumbs up, the process moves along.  If the appraiser demands repairs, we'll have to either eat the cost, get the sellers to fix it, or walk.

Can't wait for THAT.  Whoo.

And we're off to the races!

So the process is officially kicked off, and things are already in motion!

We signed the contract on Monday. After being told that it wouldn't be provided to us until Wednesday, they came back in like an hour with the addendums to sign.  We turned in the contract/addenda and the earnest money Tuesday morning, and after the realtor told us they should only take a day to sign the papers, she suggested we start calling inspectors and such.  The power and water was already turned on, so we wouldn't have to worry about that part of the process.  Yes!

So our inspector is scheduled for Friday.  We got our insurance guy shopping around for homeowners insurance. I called our bank about initiating the lending process, gathered up all my w-2s and paystubs and bank statements, so all I need to kick the lenders in gear is to get the fully-signed copy of the sales contract.  Easy enough, right?

Yesterday morning, I got a call from the realtor saying that the bank (it's a foreclosure) still hadn't signed the papers, and if they didn't sign it by this evening (Thurs), we'd have to reschedule the inspector.  Frack.

Yesterday evening, I got a call from husband saying that the realtor notified him that the utilities had been shut off in the house.  The inspector can't inspect a property if the utilities are off!  Frack.

Thankfully, as of this morning, we've got one bug down - the utilities are back on.  Now we have to go and reschedule our inspection for Tuesday, because suddenly the bank is dragging their heels.  I am glad I'm already privy to the "hurry up and wait" syndrome that bureaucratic companies love to afflict us with.

Next on the list:
1) After contract is in-hand, I can send off all ninety-bagillion pages of required documents to the lender to get started on that. 
2) Prepare for headache ensuing from underwriters of said lendor.
3) Insurance rates will be provided and (hopefully) set up on Monday
4) Inspection set for Tuesday, including termite inspector.
5) After lenders start working the process through, apparently there's also an appraiser that has to come out (which I'm hearing is around 300-400 bucks.  Yikes), and then a surveyor (also 300-400 bucks).  Really?  A surveyor?  Sigh.  I guess if these people went to school and got a degree in surveying, they gotta utilitize that talent somewhere, despite that nothing has changed on the house in over ten years to warrant a new survey.  People gotta make money, and somebody's gotta pay.  Apparently.
6) If inspection/appraisal/initial stages of underwriting go well, we have to give notice to our apartment and break contract.  That's not going to be fun, or cheap.  But oh, will it be rewarding!  (More on that in another post)

And I'm sure that list will grow as things begin to move forward.

The technical closing date is May 9th, but provided everything moves forward at a rapid pace, the realtor suspects we could move in by mid- to late-April.  We still plan to have overlap in our rental agreement just to be on the safe side, but the earlier we close, the better!

So you know, wish us luck and yell into the ether to get this bank to sign our contract already!

We bought a house!

So I can't believe I'm about to say this, but...we bought a house! We literally just finished signing the contract, so we're in the early stages, but here it is...

Tada! See, it totally looks like a castle. :)

I'm totally joining the bandwagon of DIY-homeowners who blog out their frustrations, excitements, and inspirations. We have so many friends and family members who live outside the city (and state), who can't join us in watching this home transform from its current in-pretty-good-condition-but-needs-work state, to the modern-awesome-amazing-home-that-only-the-Clarks-could-live.

I'll post more about our home purchase process (as well as throw up a few preemptive inspirational photos and pics of the home in its current state) throughout this week, as we continue through the process.

So, you know, more to come!