Home Buying- The Struggle is SOOO REAL!
The wife and I have FINALLY decided that our current house is just too small. Actually, we have known this, but we hate having to house shop, dread it. For the past year, we have been looking, only taking off the holiday season, to find the "perfect new home". See, when we bought our current home, we had one young child and not alot of "stuff". Now, nearly a decade later, that first child is 12 and we added a second child, now 2 and of course...added WAY MORE "stuff".
After looking at countless ranches, two story colonials, split levels, bi levels, farms, new construction and any other possible style we settled on one. The question is, will the sellers agree to what we want. The home is nearly a century home but it is brick and well built. Both my wife and I love the character of it...we just don't like the fact that certain things that worked 100 years ago, like knob and tube wiring, could be buried in 10-12 inches of blown in insulation in the attic! After getting a home inspection done and getting the report back, all 72 pages, we have been in the middle of estimates for work needed that the buyer has agreed to fix and waiting on mortgage people and their paperwork (more on that shortly) and just basically, well waiting. We hope to hear something this week!
The whole going back and forth wasn't really that bad. I mean, the sellers need to sell their home as they already took possession of a home back before Christmas, however they believed that because the selling home worked fine for them that getting their full price shouldn't be a problem. Based off the lovely, detailed report, that obviously wasn't the case and now after both sides have calmed down we are working together to come to a nice mutual agreement where we can take ownership and they can be rid of two mortgages.
Now the fun part. Getting "pre approved" for a new mortgage. Had my credit checked...all good. Debt to income ratio...yep, good there. No crazy issues from my past...passed that as well. However, with all that going for us, the amount of questions and paperwork and documentation needed to get approved finally is borderline insanity. I would rather get 4 root canals while getting a massage with barbed wire, alcohol and salt then to have to go through this process again. I mean, I was waiting for them to ask for my first born, Hell, I was ready to offer him if it would end the agony! Steemians, I'm telling you if you are looking to buy a home, my advice is to have ALL your finances checked over with a fine tooth comb. Any checks that get deposited, make sure you can explain them. Had a check given to me, by my mom, for cub scout popcorn and the bank questioned it. The lender who pre approved me last fall, had to run another credit pull because the old approval expired and they sent me a notice to explain me applying for credit for a loan...it was with them! Just be prepared people for the world to be thrown at you.
All in all, I hope to learn from this experience and be like the meme up above when it is all said and done. Our current home was a cash buy, and then gutted down to studs and remodeled by us so we didn't have to go through nearly the issues we are now. I'll miss this house and we have had a lot of memories here, but bottom line is, if we get this next home, we can build memories there, spend Christmas with the family, have the room to have friends over and not feel crowded and just be happier with a new home that has a history of 100 years and we plan to give it another 50 or so of our own.