Deal or no deal

Well, last Saturday we went back for a second look at a house we thought would meet our needs. We had seen it the day earlier with a friend who owns and maintains his own rental properties (the third house he's seen with us) and he said it looked a solid house to him. My dad and sister went also in Saturday with us, and my dad used the same words to describe it. It's very close to the kids' elementary school and my bus line, and has an unfinished basement and huge backyard (yes, hermanito, did I mention it's huge!?!) We left from the showing to the agent's home office to make an offer.

Sunday we got a call back from the agent notifying us that the seller had received our offer and was considering it. For the next part to make sense, you need to know about the Genesis Foundation Preferred Program. This is s first-time home buyers' program that helps folks that can manage the monthly outgo get into a property without upfront money. Basically they gift up to 6% of the sale price to the buyer, from which the downpayment and closing costs can be made, and the buyer agrees to make a corresponding donation back to the foundation in order to help a future buyer. So...we got a second contact on Sunday from the agent with a counteroffer. The counteroffer is that the seller agreed to participate in Genesis, but would not come down on the price of the home at all. We have no wiggle room based on the pre-approval, and we are $17K apart on the offers. This one is not coming through, I'm afraid.

So, we went back to our agent and widened the geographical region we're willing to consider (after talking with the kids about it). We'd been restricting ourselves to the elementary school zone, but now are open to the whole school district. I really hope that helps.

More updates as they become available.

home search update and out of town guests

So the saga last left me going to meet with the lender. I have done that. The meet was a good one - I like the people I worked with. But, my credit is on the low end of happy, so they can't automatically approve the loan. That means that someone, somewhere, will go over my stuff and make a quasi-arbitrary decision. *sigh* So the woman I worked with suggested writing a letter of explanation to accompany my application materials, which I did. She's had it all now since Tuesday,but I have no idea as to the timeline for a decision.

Meanwhile, ¡vamos a ver unas casa mañana!

The realtor (remember Moose?) and I have been working via e-mail to fine tune the houses she refers to us. One is very near the school Son #1 attends this year, where Son #2 will be the year after next. Like, the athletic fields are a half block away. I actually saw this place before she sent it to me, and had the flier in hand. Between when I saw and when she passed it on the list price has dropped $30K. I think they must be very motivated to sell... We will also look at another home about 2 blocks from our current residence. That's a great neighborhood where our kids know classmates. The outside doesn't look quite as nice as the other so I don't know what we'll find. We'll also look at a third with her that I know very little about but met our criteria.

In among all the home search madness we had a rare treat. We had a visit from a very old friends - as in my first boyfriend - and his wife and son. we had not seen him for about 12 years, and had never met his wife and son. They were in town for a long weekend because his parents are moving from the house he was raised in into a condo and he came to farewell the homestead, etc. They came for dinner Saturday and stayed very late. We didn't mind but the kids were all dragging the next day...oops. His wife is a very interesting and insightful woman, and his son is delightful. And of course it was marvelous to see him again. Mi esposo commented that it's too bad they live so far away, he could see our families socializing a lot. Hijo número 2 y el hijo de mi amigo se llevaban requetebien. Jugaban a Legos y Mech Assault (en el X-Box). They didn't want to quit. :-)

*Whew* makes me even more tired to read about everything.

Casa

So, as I mentioned, here we are minding our own business when we learn that our landlord is opting not to renew the lease on our house. Bleah. Con el mercado como está ahora no sé lo que piensa... so we've decided that now is as good a time as any to see if we can qualify to buy our own home (then no one can make us move again!) So for the next while you'll see some of our process there in this blog.

5/1 (recap for you) Bank says they have no programs for folks who need 100% of the value as a loan, but does have a referral service for a local agent that comes with cash back when you close - even if you finance elsewere. Who can say no to that?

5/5 Called the referral program and enrolled. Said I'd hear from the brokers' office tomorrow

5/6 I did! Got a call from Coldwell Banker/Burnet representative who asked some specific Qs to match us with an appropriate agent. Me dijo que recibiría una llamada más tarde hoy.

later on 5/6 I did! Within 90 minutes! Got a call from the agent, a woman named Moose. I am not making this up. She recommended talking to their lender about pre-approval so we are on the same page with specific homes. Gave me a name and number for Nick.

even later on 5/6 I called Nick - it was just after 5 PM and I thought I'd get an answering machine, pero todavía estaba en su oficina y me dijo que no le encontré saliendo. I filled out the application over the phone with him and he pulled my credit report on the spot. We talked general options, and set an appointment to meet F2F Thursday.

5/7 Called my student loan lender to get some detail Nick requested, and it was good news in the homebuyer context. Yay!

So, tomorrow I meet with Nick, and the saga will continue.

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

Yes, it's May Day, and yes, I feel like shouting "Mayday!" El dueño de la casa que alquilamos no va a renovar nuestro contracto. So that means that we only have our current residence until June 30. We are exploring the intricacies of first time home-buyership, but so far have met with little success. The bank where I have my auto loan does not have any programs for people like us, meaning those who didn't know they'd be buying a house and therefore have no down payment saved up. Me avisaron que me ponga en contacto con un agente inmobiliario local because he or she would probably have a better handle on what local and/or state programs we might tap into. They did give me contact info for a program they have to help folks connect with such local agents, y hasta ofrecen un incentivo de $950 cuando cumplimos la compra. Funny thing is I contacted t hat program a few months back when we didn't know we would be moving, but I thought it was a different service than it was so so didn't have them do anything.

Todo esto y a la vez tenemos que encontrar más ayuda para hijo número dos con sus problemas psicológicos. Stress: I has it.