I'm a homeowner!!

Oh. My. Goodness. My "to do" list is HUGE!!! We were supposed to close at 11:00am, but then the "closer" pushed it back until 2:30pm. THEN.. she was even later and we didn't finish closing until about 4:30pm. THEN we went to Home Depot and made our fist home related purchase: new locks, some paint samples, and glue for the spot where the linolium flooring is peeling up in the kitchen.

My paint samples didn't work so well. It was supposed to be a light grayish-blue, but turned into a more medium grayish-green, so I'll head back to the paint department tomorrow and look for something lighter and bluer. I love being able to think about things like this! I'm excited to have walls in any shade other than white!

Anyway, to finish up how today went, it was basically a lot of paperwork. There was even a page for me to sign saying that my signature is my own. Sheesh! Talk about what seems like needless paperwork! I can't complain though. The process was overall very simple. Our realtor, mortgage broker, and a closer were all there at closing. The title company is based out of town so they apparently use a "closer" to work with the buyer.

I took some pics of us removing all of the electric outlet covers and taping the living room up to get painted. The pics are on Kevin's phone, so I'll have to post them later.

We did a lot of cleaning this evening. Jamie and Wes came over to help. We got all the weird stains cleaned (pretty much), bleached both bathrooms, mopped the floors, bleached the corners where there was a lot a gunk, and cleaned the walls to get everything ready for paint.

I guess that's all. I'll try to update this thing with our progress.

Going about the process

There's a lot of paperwork involved with buying a home, and just when you think you've finished all the paperwork, they give you more. I can't complain though. It feels good to sign the stuff.

We're moving along nicely in the loan process. So far, we haven't hit any major hang-ups (knock on wood.) We got the appraisal report back today and everything looks good. The home appraised for more than we're paying for it and it meets FHA criteria.

I'm still very cautious. This home search has been a scary process and I don't trust anyone or anything. At what point is it safe to look at paint colors? (Not that it matters, I've already decided what I want to do. ::sigh:: I'm obsessed and have no patience.)

New House

Things are looking up

We put in offer in on a house about a month-and-a-half ago. I didn't post about it because I got tired of posting the same thing, and honestly our offer didn't seem that good. I assumed we wouldn't get the house. Well, I assumed wrong. They saw our offer, gave a reasonable counter-offer and we went with it!

Fast forward a few weeks. We've completed the inspection and are working on getting a loan processed. The house has a few minor issues, but nothing major enough to make us want to break the deal.

Details aboutt the house:
It's 1600 square feet. 3br/2bath. It has a very small yard, but overlooks a nice little lake (retention pond.) The house doesn't need a ton of work, which is nice. The only appliance that needs to be replaced is the refrigerator. I'll add pictures of everything in another post.

So far, so good. The house gets appraised today and I'm not at all worried about it not meeting conditions. The only thing left is for the loan to process so that we can lock in a rate and close!

Oh.. and just an FYI if you're looking to buy a house. Interest rates are back down to 5.5%. Score!

I hate Tampa (but love good food!)

Yeah, so the "mini vaca" turned out to be horrible. I won't go into details here..but I pretty much hate Tampa. The only good thing that came from it was last night's delicious steak dinner. I had salad, french onion soup, half a bottle of wine, 8oz filet mignon, carrots, green beans, and shoe string onions. THEN we got a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar. THEN... we went upstairs to this cute little intimate dessert room and had some kind of flaming deliciousness. It was yellow cake, macadamia nut ice cream, with a marshmellow topping, which was doused with liquor and set on fire! YUMZORS! I wish I'd taken a picture. :-( I want to show you all how pretty the dinner was.

Mini Vaca

The past few weeks have been especially hectic at work. My schedule changes almost daily. I can hardly keep up with it anymore. Fortunately, Kevin has a business meeting in Tampa coming up and I get to tag along! I probably won't do anything more than drive around Tampa and we'll go out to dinner the night we're there, but at least I won't be here and I won't be at work. The sad thing is, this is the first time I'll be leaving the Orlando area since we got married (over six months ago!).

I got promoted a month or so after the wedding and started working weekends. Since my days off are in the middle of the week, Kevin and I haven't been able to go anywhere together. We didn't have a honeymoon and I'm now really regretting that decision. We figured we'd have the weekends together. It's sad because I really miss my husband. I feel like we never see each other except for a few hours here-and-there and I'm usually dog tired when we do see each other. So, even though he'll be working I hope we can use this "weekend" of mine to spend a little bit of time together.

Another No

Pembridge house behind UCF is a big fat no from the seller.

First Time Home Buyers & update

So, I'm watching this show on HGTV called "First Time Home Buyers." I have to say, it's reassuring to watch a couple go through the same issues we're facing. In this episode, the featured young couple put an offer on one house, and it went under contract before they even got to put in an offer. The second house they put an offer on they couldn't get because the seller wouldn't budge on price. The third house was a foreclosure, they put an offer on it and then had to go into a bidding war with a cash buyer and ended up offering more than asking price. Luckily, they got their house (which has yet to happen for us) but then the inspector came out and he found tons of issues with it. (The same thing happened to us with the Lancer Oak Dr. house.) They decided to buy it anyway (the issues weren't as significant as needing a new roof, like the Lancer Oak house needed for us), and as far as the show tells us, they live happily ever after in their "fixer upper."

Anyway, it was interesting to see them really excited, then upset and frustrated all in one episode. It's reassuring to know that we're not the only ones going through these types of issues. I know we aren't the only ones, but still, it seems like buying a house is so easy for some people. And it was still easier for the HGTV couple than it has been for us because they found their place and closed on it in six weeks. We've been looking since June and have met disappointment after disappointment.

Our fingers are still crossed for the Pembridge house which we currently have an offer on, but my hopes aren't up. Like I've said before, I'm over the home buying thing. I'm ready to move on with my life and have decided spending my time thinking about a "maybe" house is a huge waste of time. In a few weeks our deadline will be up and we'll be looking at rentals.

However, I don't know if we actually will be looking at rentals. Things are actually improving a bit here. Our landlord still hasn't paid his HOA dues and, as far as we can tell, he's still behind on his mortgage, but we got a letter in the mail the other day from Bright House saying they now offer cable to this community without going through the HOA. So, we now have cable! I'm very excited to feel connected to the pop culture world again and if we have to put up with this place for another year or so until Kevin graduates, then so be it. If we don't have a house here when he graduates, then we'll definately be leaving Florida.

Orlando Housing Market

Home sales are up this month for the Orlando area and prices are down. The median price is $125,000 and yet we haven't had any luck finding a place!

For more on the new statistics click.

4319 PEMBRIDGE AVE

We have an offer in on this one. It needs some roof work, but we'll try to see if the seller will pay for it. (terrible pics on this one. Whoever took the photos has no clue how to show a house in a picture.)

Kevin's favorite - 4221 FOREST ISLAND DR

Kevin really likes this house. It's ok, but I need to spend more than 10 mins in it to know if its the one. It's smaller than the others we've been looking at. Only 1300 sq feet.

Bad ex-boyfriend syndrome

I'm pretty much done looking for a house, but our realtor still sends us updates when he sees something he thinks we'll like.

Well, Lancer Oak didn't sell, so now the price has been reduced and it's going to auction. Silly bankers should've just given it to us in the first place! Now, we have to decide whether to put another, lower offer on the house. (We'd still make them pay for a roof and A/C!)

Of course, our first inclanation is to say yes. We fell in love with the house, we should put another offer on it! The problem is, it has what I call the bad ex-boyfriend syndrom. It wasn't perfect, but I fell in love with it, convinced myself it was meant to be. Then, it left and I cried. We had a bad breakup. I thought nothing else would ever compare until I decided to move on and look for something better. I saw some things that were better, maybe not perfect, but better, so I moved on. I decided screw that house! We don't need it! It's not right for us anyway! And I convinced myself that it's over. You don't go back to your ex-boyfriend, right? So we shouldn't go back to this house.

Of course, this is a silly way to look at it, and probably not very mature. I'm just stating the way I feel. I'm over it, but of course part of me wants to go back. Should we go back? Regardless of how bad it hurt to find out the seller decided to back out of the offer two days before closing...it's still an amazing deal on a house. Yes, the house needs lots of work. Yes, there are nicer houses out there in better shape. But so far, those have not been reachable for us because nobody else has accepted our offer. This is a good house. Strong house. It just needs a lot of TLC, which before.. we convinced ourselves was something we wanted to do.

Bah!
Decisions!

Nope

I thought the home in Ocoee was very promising. The house was perfect, I finally got myself comfortable with the neighborhood. We were told there was a good chance our offer would be accepted if we could close by the end of the month, which we can. And guess what!? After making us wait a week..and even having us go through the approval process.. we find out that we weren't the winning bid.

I'm done with this. I said it before and I mean it now. I wish Kevin would give up too. We can't win the type of home we want and we need to give our notice to our landlord by the end of this month so that we can leave this place and move on with our lives. I'm ready to just rent an apartment and be done with it. Sure, I'll be unhappy in an apartment..walking through a dark parking lot late at night...trying to find a parking spot late at night..lugging groceries up and down stairs.. trying to sleep in the middle of the day while neighbors are out and about making all kinds of noise..not having any sort of yard or privacy...not being able to have a dog because there won't be a place for it to run around in...not being able to personalize the place and paint the walls and turn it into a home...not having room for company when they come to vist. The reasons why I don't want an apartment are endless, but what other options do we have? We can't rent another house. After this madness in this market, I won't do that again. Our landlord is having financial issues and because of that we don't have access to all of the community ammenities, we have to come up with the cash if something needs fixed, and we worry that every day we could get a foreclosure notice on the door. I don't want to deal with this ever again. At least in an apartment, you know you won't be foreclosed on.

I'm just so extremely frustrated. Our realtor sent us some new listings tonight, but I'm not interested in any of them. All the houses suck compared to the two we've fell in love with.

I tried really hard not to let myself get attached, but when we started the approval process I had to make up my mind as to whether or not the house was for us. I had to do more research on the neighborhood..and I decided that YES it was the home for us. I had to do that research. If I didn't, then if our offer DID get accepted I wouldn't have been able to say yes or no right away.

Somebody has to have some good advice. Yes, I know the process can be frustrating and long, but we're on a time limit. we need that government tax credit and we're stuck living in a place now that we don't want to stay in.

I told Kevin that we should never have begun looking for a house to begin wiht. Sure, we both want to be homeowners, but we should've dropped out as soon as we realized that the market isn't what we thought it would be. Sure, houses are listed at cheap prices, but those prices aren't what they're selling at. They're selling for a lot more. I just feel like we're wasting our time and energy. Or, at least, I'm wasting my time and energy. If Kevin wants to continue the search, then he can enjoy himself, but I want nothing to do with it.

Today's Find - 2732 S SPRINGFIELD DRIVE, OCOEE

We found a house we really like today. The floor plan is pretty much perfect for us. The place has a lot of storage. It's in excellent shape...appears to have a new roof. The neighborhood seems quiet. Price is decent.

So what's the down fall?
It's awefully close to Pine Hills (for those who don't live around here, the place is nicknamed "crime hills." We often don't even cover shootings there on the news because they're so common.) To make it clear, this house is NOT in Pine Hills, but it's just a few miles down the road from it. This house is in what appears to be a very nice subdivision. I'm assuming the location is the reason why it's so affordable, because we really did like this house.
Here are some pictures. (I have more pics, but blogger won't let me upload more than a few in each post.)

For those of you who are local, here's where it's located in the city.



I figure we'll put an offer on it, and not stress about the decision unless our offer is accepted (which knowing this housing market, it probably won't be. We already know this house is a multiple offer situation.)

Lake Biscayne

Didn't get that house either. Offer wasn't accepted.

This is very discouraging.

Update on San Diego Dr.

Our offer was not accepted on the house.

I'm pretty sure if the seller does accept our offer on the other house, we're going to turn it down. I just don't feel like its the right home for us.

1129 LAKE BISCAYNE WAY

Pros:
Love the overall floor plan...has a formal dining room
The kitchen is big and roomy
Nice tile floors
Ready to move in..needs very little work.
Good neighborhood
Garden tub and decent sized master bath.
Tiled screened in patio

Cons:
Same location as the San Diego house, pretty inconvenient for both of us.
Neighbors on all sides
Not much of a backyard and it isn't fenced
The three guest bedrooms are small.
Carpet needs replaced in bedrooms

13129 SAN DIEGO WOODS LN.

I suppose you'll start seeing more of these posts from me again. It gives you a chance to see the homes we're looking at.








Pros:
Ready to move in to
Kitchen and bathroom have awesome upgrades. granite countertops, cool sinks.
Nice flooring.
The home itself doesn't need any work...not even paint.
Nice floor plan
Master is on first floor, others are all upstairs
4 bedroom instead of 3.
Excellent neighborhood
No HOA fees!

Cons:
No garden tub or room to put one in
No screened in patio
Terrible location for both of us, but at this point.. I feel like we can't be picky with location. It's either a nice house, or nice location. Nice houses in nice locations just don't exist in our price range.
Neighbors on all sides.
Small-ish back yard.
Not a lot of closet space in master bedroom

Moving along...

Today we're off to look at about a half-dozen more houses. There just isn't much out there. And now interest rates are going up.

Most of the homes we're going to look at today aren't in ideal locations, but we're going to see them anyway because we feel like we have to get back out there to keep looking.

The one area, zip code 32824, has a lot of beautiful homes in our price range in great neighborhoods. The only hangup is that it's almost an hour drive to work for me and a 1/2 drive for Kevin + almost $5 a day in tolls. I'm not too excited about that, but we're going to look at those homes anyway because they look so incredibly awesome. One of them was built in 2006 and has never been lived in. It'd be pretty awesome to own a brand new house.

I'll update you later on what I think of the houses.

Disapponinted

Just not finding any other homes that compare to the one we couldn't get because of its roof issues...

And yet another post titled frustration

This house isn't even worth blogging about anymore. Once again, we think we'll be able to get it, when in fact we can not. I'm tired of people dragging us around and not being up front with the costs. I'm just done. I think we'll continue to be renters. And I don't want any kind of "don't give up" comments. I really am done with this. I don't expect buying a home to be easy, but it isn't worth this kind of hassle. Seriously.

Ongoing Frustration

Kevin this time... We're back to waiting to find out whether we are getting the house or not. It seems that despite our realtor's assurance that it doesn't matter whether we are applying concessions to closing or repairs, it does matter to the bank we are buying from. They seem to be willing to pay for the new roof that the house also needs, but they don't like that we corrected the allocation of concessions in our contract addendum. Waiting now to find out whether they can be convinced to go for it anyways or whether we can find a way to reduce closing costs or something to still meet the money we have to work with. Annoying to no end.

False hope

The realtor apparently read the documents wrong. We did not get the house. Disregard my last post that I just deleted.

My Back

I hurt my back a few months ago, and recently went for an MRI. I got the results back today and it's exactly what they suspected: a herniated disc.

The next step is to go to an Orthropedic specialist where they will most likely recommend giant needles full of steroids be injected into my spine, pain pills, and physical therapy.

I hate that option. I hate pain pills and I certainly don't want a giant needle stuck into my spine on several different occasions (isn't there some risk involved with that?) and there's a chance that route won't even work long-term.

My other options appear to be surgery (yuck! I think not!) Or spinal decompression therapy. I like the idea of decompression therapy. It sounds painful, but it's drug free, which is always the best option in my opinion. The problem with it is that it's very expensive and not covered by my insurance. The doctor's office says they'll fight tooth and nail for me to get the therapy if that's what I want, but there's a good chance insurance will refuse, since it's an alternative treatment. I could risk hurting my credit by taking out a small loan for the therapy, but I'm afraid to touch anything credit-wise while we're trying to get a home. You never know how some things will impact that oh-so-important credit score.

In any case, long-term pain is not an option, and I will choose anything over drugs or surgery.

If you haven't heard of spinal decompression therapy, there are two different types I could try. One is where they basically stretch your back out manually, the other is where they stretch your back out by a machine.

It's not over yet

It appears the seller *might* actually pay for a new roof. Does this make the place worth buying?

The Search Continues...

I don't really want to keep searching, but I suppose we shall. It'll be difficult to find a home now. I doubt we'll buy a house this year, and that'll mean it'll be several years before we buy a home since we need that $8k to be able to do this.

Inspection Report

The inspector just emailed me the full report. I'd be happy to share it with friends and family. Just email me if you want to see it.

Inspection Day

Inspection didn't go so well. The house needs more work than we're able to deal with, specifically a new roof and there may be something wrong with the plumbing in the master bath. The roof is an issue that we're unable to be flexible with. We certainly can't afford a new roof now, nor will we be able to afford one within a few years. So I guess this is the end of the home on Lancer Oak Dr.

Does the search continue? Or do we give up? After seeing dozens of homes, and being turned away from the few that are obviously good deals, should we even bother?

I hate that I'm sitting here crying over this home all by myself. I have to turn the house down, and I have to do it without Kevin here to comfort me and reassure me that we're making the right decision. (He's out of town on business for three weeks.)I think I know walking away from this is the right decision, but I don't want to walk away.

I'm so frustrated, stressed, upset, and tired I can't even think straight. I can't focus on anything else.

This blows.

The Damage

I've been very hesitant to put up pictures of the damage. This could very well be the reason we can't get it financed. The good news is.. it's only drywall. Drywall is cheap and easy to replace. And two windows. Those should be cheap too. It looks bad, I know. But it's the reason why we could actually get the house (and the no A/C thing, but the bank appears to be taking care of that for us.)

Wanna see where it is?

Here's the neighborhood:


Here's my drive to work:


Here's Kevin's Drive to work:

Now for the hard part...

We agreed to buy the house. Now we just need to get it inspected, appraised, and financed. I think we've figured out how we can pay for all of it, it's just a matter of getting everyone else to go along with our plan.

I'm going to get a bit emotional here because let's face it, I'm really scared. This is by far the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. It's a lot of money, there's a lot of fine print, there's a lot of work involved and there's a lot to understand. I wish there was some magical way for me to just know that we made the right decision and that everything will be okay, but unfortunately life isn't that simple.

Even though we feel like we can afford the mortgage right now, I can't help but wonder what could happen months or years down the road (especially in these uncertain economic times.) Kevin seems very confident. He feels that everything will be okay and appears 100% certain we've made the right decision, but no matter how many times we talk in circles I just can't feel the same way. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm cautious. I'm stressed. I'm pessimistic.

I have this nightmare that we're going to get into this home and not be able to fix the things it needs, or we find out after moving in that it needs more work that we first thought...and of course more work = more money.

I've made a list of the things that need to be done right away and am factoring those into our "closing costs"...not the actual lender closing costs, but the money we'll need to move into the home. In all, it equals more than we have. I'm not sure where that money will come from, but I can only pray that it will somehow work. We're going to save like chipmunks for the next month or so and hope that we can at least get the appliances needed to make the place work. We've been scanning craigslist looking for deals. They're out there, we just can't purchase appliances until we know for sure that we have the house; that would just be silly.

I know, at this point I'm just rambling. My sentences are all running together and what I've typed may not make any sense to anyone else, but I just need to get this stuff out of my head and onto paper (internet). I've talked about this stuff with Kevin, but it's still nice to just write it all down. And I guess I'm just looking for reassurance...something nobody out there and internet land can give me. I have no confidence in my decision making ability, I never have. I don't trust my own judgement at all, which is pretty sad. So, before I continue this pitty party I'm going to go ahead and quit typing. Yeah. I'm done typing.

Good news!

The bank decided to accept our offer on Lancer Oak Dr. after all. Now we just need to decide if we actually can afford/want the house!

And...

I suppose the search continues.

This stuff sure can do a number on a relationship. Grr...

Lancer Oak Dr. update

At least we were valid candidates this time.

The bank (seller) came back with a counter-offer, but its much more than we can afford. We really can't come back with anything higher than we already offered. So, I guess we don't get the house. It's quite discouraging. I just don't know how to keep searching, or if we even should keep searching. Today, I thought once again about leaving Florida. If we buy a home, it won't be easy to just pick up and go, but I really do want a house too.

I wish the Staples "easy button" actually worked with real life situations.

Waterford home update

No go on the Waterford home. We offered 2K over asking, but it turns out the seller has cash offers that are definately higher than that.

14415 WATERFORD CHASE PKWY

While we're waiting for a response from the bank on the Lancer Oak Dr. home, we went along with our realtor to look at a new listing in the Waterford Lakes area today (close to Kevin's work.) We've already seen four different realtors at the place since it hit the market on Saturday (five if you count our own realtor.) I'm guessing this home is hot with a lot of competition. Our realtor also expects that's the case. It's pretty much exactly what we're looking for 3 bedrooms, 2 bath..ready to live into with the right floor plan.

Pros:
Great neighborhood
Great location
Great floor plan
Ready to move into
Decent sized bedrooms
Nice kitchen space
Nice tile floors (the kind I'd do if I was re-flooring a home)
Sits next to a "lake" (aka retention pond)
Extra nook in the garage for Kevin's stuff

Cons:
Sits on a busy road. There isn't much noise, but there is a lot of traffic.
Backyard isn't fenced. (But others in the neighborhood are, which means there's no restriction against fencing it in.)

Update

We made an offer on the house on Lancer Dr.
Now we just have to play the waiting game...

It is bank owned, so that could take a little longer than a normal house. From our past offer-making experiences, it'll be about 2 weeks before we know anything. I have a feeling our offer will be shot-down since it's less than asking and we expect the bank that owns it to pay for a new A/C unit. We shall see, I guess.

I'm also a little concerned that we offered more than we can afford. Kevin is working the budget to make sure everything is still ok.

::sigh::


Oh, and for something not house related. I seriously hurt my back and it looks like it could be something serious (well, not life threatening serious,but pain for life serious.) And now I'm fighting with the insurance company to cover the proper tests.

::sigh::

Life is a constant battle.

97 LANCER OAK DR, APOPKA

Pros:
HUGE (6 bedrooms. What would we do with all that space? oh the possibilities!)
Nice neighborhood
Nice floor plan
big master bed and bath
big kitchen
2 stories
Lots of space to work with.

Cons:
Needs appliances
No A/C (but we're trying to get seller to pay for it.)
Holes in the walls (people mad cuz they got foreclosed on) Easy to fix. Just drywall.
2 windows missing.
ugly kitchen counters
dirty bathrooms
not much backyard
No fancy tub. (but space to put one in).
Needs new carpet, but not right away necessarily.

I messed up

I've tried really, really hard not to let myself get attached to any single house. But I did fall in love with the home on Kati Lynn Drive yesterday. This afternoon I found out that it sold this morning. An offer was accepted on it THIS MORNING. We saw it last night.

I really feel like we don't have a chance at getting a home. And now, I'll be comparing every place we look at with this home and I just know that nothing else will be good enough. I loved the floor plan too much. I loved that it had a little bit of land. I loved everything about it...even the location, which Kevin wasn't fond of at all.

I feel like if Kevin and I had the chance to talk this home over and decided it wasn't right for us, I wouldn't feel so heart broken. But it got sold before we even had a chance to discuss it thoroughly. This is why I'm so frustrated. EVERYTHING we've liked has been sold out from under us. It just isn't fair.

Sure, I'm whining and complaining. But I came home today crying about a house. The stress is unbearable and I don't even feel like looking at homes anymore. We've looked at..probably close to 30 houses and have found 4 that would work for us. They all sold either way too quickly, or way above listing price and we just can't afford that. I just don't care to look anymore.

400 ROCKBRIDGE CT, APOPKA

This is our second favorite of all the homes we've seen, but it also has the issue of location. It'd be a 45 min drive to work for Kevin.

Pros
very nice neighborhood
nice floor plan
nice backyard
super nice bathroom with 2 person tub and separate shower!

Cons
kitchen needs more counter/cabinet space
guest bathroom needs some work, mainly a new tub
location (45 min. drive for kevin)