Back to Winter

We had 2 beautiful days this week and it felt like spring had arrived. I even heard birds singing in the trees. But little did they know. . . winter was coming back. Ice on Thursday, snow on Friday and it feels like we are stuck in January again. I hope that it melts soon and that it's not snowing in 3 weeks when we are supposed to be moving! Any idea where the birds went?

Divine Providence

I headed back down to Omaha this past weekend to look for more houses. We were still under contract with the green house but we honestly didn't know how the sellers were going to respond to our electrical and mold repair request (demand). Every house I was interested in turned out to be sold or under contract. I saw a few cute houses that were really too small for us and needed as much updating as the green house. One house had 3 rooms with mirrored paneled walls. I don't consider myself to be superstitious, but I couldn't even fathom breaking 500 or so mirrors to remove the panels. So the kids and I headed back home today and resigned ourselves to buying the green house, if the sellers were willing to cooperate. If they said "no" to the repairs, we didn't even know what we were going to do.

So an interesting thing happened today. Joe met a new person at work. Within a few minutes they realized that she that she knew my aunt and my mom. She grown up in the same town and gone to school with them and she had heard about our move to Nebraska via my aunt and knew that we were trying to buy a house. Pretty small world huh? But then the situation got even more interesting. Turns out she also knows the sellers of the green house. Joe and I both felt that my mom was really looking out for us and this chance meeting seemed to confirm that we were supposed to get the green house. Joe called me late this afternoon to tell me all about this "chance" meeting and about an hour later our realtor called to say that the sellers were doing all the repairs we had requested.

Needless to say, I really feel like my mom helped us to know that this was the right house for us. What are the odds that we would meet a woman that knew my mom, still kept in touch with my aunt and just happened to know the sellers of the house? I think it's Divine Providence. It's been hard not to have my mom to talk to while we have been navigating the world of home ownership, but I'm thankful that she showed us what to do and I don't have any concerns about buying the green house anymore. It will still need some updating but I feel totally at peace with our purchase now. Thanks Mom.

The Newest News

Okay, so we found a tiny bit of mold in the green house, thus precipitating the need for a mold test. The mold test did not indicate elevated levels of mold, but it did find a tiny little bit of black mold. That's the toxic stuff, for those of you not familiar with mold. I'm still confused as to how you have black mold in your house, and yet the tests don't say elevated mold.

The sellers aren't required to remedy the mold problem, but we would be required to remedy it in the future before we could sell the house. Not that we'd want to live in a moldy house anyway. So if you have followed all that and aren't completely confused. . . We are going to ask the sellers to remove the mold and they have to have a specialist do this. Of course these things cost money, and it is unlikely that the sellers will want to spend any more money on this house. (We are still waiting for them to get back to us on the electrical repairs. They verbally agreed to do the repairs but have yet to file a written addendum. Kind of suspicious.)

In the meantime, I have found a few more houses to look at and of course there is one that I'm really interested in. I'm trying to keep myself from falling in love with it based on the pictures because they can be so deceptive. But keep your fingers crossed that the house is actually nice and non-moldy and that it can be ours.

Something Fun

I've been so busy writing about our house fiasco that I haven't posted anything fun or cute about the kids in quite awhile. I also haven't taken any pictures since Christmas. So the other day the kids were playing in the tub and I decided to snap a few. These crazy goggles belonged to my sister when she was a kid; so I guess they are about 20 years old. Anastasia really loves wearing them in the tub. I'm sure she'll be embarrassed by these pictures someday. But for now . . .

Rafael just being himself.

Two little monkeys in the tub.

Home Inspection Fun

Yesterday (Wednesday) we had a home inspection on the house. Apparently, there are a number of issues with the house. We already knew that the electrical system was dated, but we didn't know that the seller liked to play electrician. So there are a few wires and things that need to be fixed. Tomorrow we present them with a list of things we would like to be fixed. I'm a little scared at what the response might be. I'm thinking these might be the options.
A) Yes, we'll gladly fix all the things that you requested.
B) We'll fix most of the things you requested.
C) We won't fix any of the things, but we'll lower the price of the house and you can fix them yourselves.
D) We won't fix anything and if you don't like it then you can just find another house to buy.

Given that the sellers are older and somewhat stubborn and they happily lived with the problems of their house, despite the safety concerns, I think that they might go with D. Let's hope that they can be reasonable. I'll keep you posted.

Clean Sweep?

I packed my first box today. I have been thinking about packing for at least a week. We moved into this small townhouse before Rafael was born and a lot of stuff has come through the door, but, I'm embarrassed to admit, hardly any stuff has left. So I have high hopes of getting rid of maybe half of our stuff before we move. I once heard Peter Walsh, the organizational guru, say that in order to get organized try to take 2 bags of stuff out of your house each day, one to donate, one to throw away. I'm thinking maybe if I take one box of junk out for every box I pack I might be able to really pare down on what we have.

Just thinking about this, I'm wondering if I should repack the ONE box I have packed and get rid of half of the videos that are in there. I know some of you out there are really good at organization. So can someone please give me some tips? Please? Detachment is key here. I just have to tell myself that I don't need most of this stuff and that I'm not really saving any money by dragging it around with me. I can't believe that I'm admitting this in print, but we still have stuff back in Virginia that my kind, understanding, and helpful sister, Andria, is storing for us. Granted, it's nice stuff like furniture and china, but can you believe that we have stuff on the other side of the country that we left behind 5 years ago? Second true confession, we still have stuff in Lincoln at my dad's house that we left behind more than 3 years ago. After we move, I'm definitely going to go to Lincoln and purge all that stuff. Good thing there's a thrift store just down the street. ;)

But anyway, for all of you experienced packers, movers and organizers, please give me advice. I really want to turn over a new leaf here so that we haven't outgrown our new house before we even move in!

Sold

Well, we didn't counter again. The sellers are old and stubborn. They were going to offer the same offer they had given us yesterday, but someone in their family convinced them to move a little. So they gave us a little more in closing costs. Unfortunately, we just couldn't get them to budge on the price. Oh well. We are still getting a good deal. Not sure what else we could have done at this point. So we went with it.

So now we have to have the home inspection, because everything is contingent on that. I think it will be fine. I guess I need to decide whether we are driving down to follow the inspector around during the inspection, or just to have him email us the results. I suppose I would learn a lot about houses and problems that can occur if I went to the inspection. Hmmmm, what to do. Wish it wasn't a 2 hour drive.

But congrats to us to having a contract on a house. I'm sort of, almost, motivated to pack. A little.:)

p.s. I really shouldn't be surprised that we ended up with a bright green house. I suppose that's what I get for having a bright green blog. Although, I think the house is about 3 shades brighter. I'm not kidding.

Countering the Counter-offer

The sellers of the house rejected our initial offer. Oh well. Can't say we were too surprised. After all these are people who refused to paint their neon green house before they put it on the market - which is why the house is still neon green right now. So they countered, sort-of, and we countered back. They should have a response for us by tonight. If they counter again, do we counter-offer the counter-offer's counter-offer? Craziness.

It's a little bit fun and a lot of frustration, but hopefully we will know where we are moving in the next 24 hours. Keep your fingers crossed. And say a prayer. The prayer will probably help us more than crossed fingers. ;) Thanks!

Wait and See

We submitted our bid to our realtor about 10 minutes ago. I hope she is submitting it to the sellers as we speak. Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer that they accept our offer and get back to us soon! It would be so nice to be officially "under contract" before the weekend is over. It would probably also give me all sorts of motivation to get packing!

The Latest News

So we are going with the Guaranteed Rural Loan. The Direct Rural Loan is just too complicated. You need to have 6 months of employment before you can close. You have to apply directly to the USDA, a lender cannot do it for you. You have to disclose all sorts of financial informtion, even beyond a standard loan. You can't buy a house over a certain price. You can't make too much money. I really can't deal with all the contingencies.

The rate is a little higher with the Guaranteed and we'll pay a little more, but we should be able to close earlier and we won't have to deal with all the other red tape. We are hoping to put in our offer tomorrow! Buying a house is a learning experience. But if you haven't done it yet, learn from our mistakes! :)

Update

So the one rural housing program still has funding, but they don't know for how long. Basically they are getting funded month to month until Congress approves a budget. On the flip side, it sounds like we couldn't close on a house for 6 months anyway, because they would like Joe to have 6 months of employment before they will give us a loan. Sigh. Why can't things be more simple?

I think we should just find out if the owners of the house we are interested in will let us rent. Or maybe we should go with a different loan program. I really don't have any answers right now. Only questions.

More Roadblocks

We just found out, today, the day that we were supposed to put a bid on the house, that our lender can't actually give us the loan we want. All along she was saying that she could, but she just found out that the rural loan we want is actually administered directly through the USDA. So we need to apply directly to them. Hmmm, it would have really helped if we would have known this 2 weeks ago, when we first applied for the loan!

So now we are off to apply to the USDA. Let's hope this doesn't get any more complicated. Oh, wait, it already has. A banker that I talked to told me that USDA has frozen funds, meaning they have no funds and can't give out any loans. So we can apply for the loan and have conditional financing or something like that. One of these days the US gov't will release the funds (if they have them) although they might have already spent them on something else. Who knows??? So we need to apply for a loan that may or may not have funding, so we can put a bid on a house that we may or may not be able to buy. Are you confused yet? I am.

We might just see if the owners are willing to rent it to us while we wait for all the financing to sort itself out. In the meantime, Joe starts Monday and has found a friend to stay with. So let's keep our fingers crossed that we can all move to Omaha in the next month or so.

p.s. I've been researching and it seems like there might be funding, but who really knows. Half the articles say USDA is out of funds, the other half say they are still issuing loans. I'm calling USDA directly tomorrow, so we'll see what they say. :)

Things aren't always what they seem

The dream house turned out to be a nightmare house. While it looked amazing in photos, in reality it had structural issues, wood rot, some kind of water damage, and maybe even termites. Umm, no thanks. So we are going with house number 2. This was actually the first house we ever looked at, and laughed at, when we saw it. Guess first impressions aren't everything.

So the biggest problem is that this house is neon green. I have no idea why it is painted this color. No other house in the entire neighborhood is painted a crazy bright color. But we can paint it, so it's not really a big deal. It's probably not as big of a house as we would have liked, but we are getting a good deal on our loan and our payments will be ridiculously cheap, (like cheaper than we could ever pay in rent cheap.) So that's pretty sweet.

As they say in the real estate biz, the house has "good bones". It is dated, for sure, but I think we'll have fun updating it. It has a rockin' finished room in the basement that will be the official playroom. All toys will be banished to that room, never to be tripped over again. And just the thought of that makes me happy! The backyard is big and it is fenced. The house is on a quiet street and there seem to be lots of other families living there from the amount of playground equipment that seems to populate every other backyard. I didn't take any pictures of the house yet, because I'm just not sure she is ready for prime time. I'm thinking I might have to post before and after pictures once she is painted. Then we can all laugh about how the first Cervantes house was leprechaun green. ;)