The Toughest Part of the Journey...

The outdoor thermometer was bulging at 104 yesterday. I was sticky and hot. If not for the small apartment air conditioner we bought at Sears during the last 100+ summer heat wave, July 2004, I would have melted into a puddle on the floor. It was on this blazing hot day that we received the mortgage loan papers.

Maybe it's because of the heat this week effecting my hubby and me, but this is probably the toughest part of the journey so far for us. Yeah three months of waiting to find out if the lenders bank would except our short sale offer was nothing compared to this. Waiting and patience seems so easy now (it really wasn't, but it seems like it). I opened the packet up first before Rob got home from work. I wish I had waited.

I was fine up til now. I mean the home inspection went very well. Nothing major came up, only small minor stuff. Even when we got news that the down payment assistance we had planned to use was suspended due to lack of funds, we only had a day of concern until we had a backup plan in place. We accepted the changes and went forward. The monthly payment went up a little and the interest rate was up a .25 point but we crunched all the numbers and everything was still doable.

I opened the packet and I started going through, page after page, trying to make sense of it all. Rob and I know we don't have any experience with buying a home, but at times during the process, we've relied on common sense, hoping that "street smarts" will get us through. I'm finding out very quickly, common sense was not being served on the menu the day the lawyers thought up the system of buying a home.

First, the address of the home was wrong. Second, we found more corrections like, the number of years at our current address, bank accounts stuff etc. But that's all minor, really. That we could handle. Besides, these aren't the final papers. Typos or mistakes are expected on a long loan document like ours. No biggie.

Then we got to the nitty gritty...the numbers. You know the pages that showed the thousands of dollars we would be paying for the home. I had to grab hold of something while I was reading. I thought I would pass out or hyperventilate when I read the amount of interest we would be paying over the life of the loan. You know, 30 years. That's alot of moula at 5.75% or whatever the APR is after figuring in the loan costs. Whew! It definintely was the most sobering moment I've had so far.

The questions starting coming. Even more when Rob came home and we looked at them together. Then our mind, like a factory, starting manufacturing doubt after doubt. They had multiplied while reading through all the pages. Are we doing the right thing? Can we really afford this? Will we be going back into debt? Knowing us, you can understand our reaction. We just spent the last 4 1/2 years paying off all our debts. Plus, we are simple folk. We've always rented, for 25 years of marriage. Small apartments in low income areas. This is really a big step for us. I know they always say this, but it is true...this is the biggest and most expensive decision we have ever made! Very sobering.

I'd like to say we immediately took it to the Lord, but we didn't until after we ruminated on it for a while. It wasn't until bedtime that we prayed and asked God to forgive us for our anxiety and doubts. He brought us both peace so we could sleep but I still felt the consequenses of those doubts today in the form of body stress which made my blood sugars higher.

So, we called our mortgage advisor, Mia. We made an appointment to meet on Saturday at Rob's office. She promises to answer all our questions. Rob and I love this home. We want to close on August 28. But we do need assurances from Mia. The payment has to be affordable for us to go forward. The interest rate needs to be no higher than agreed upon. We are hoping Saturday all will be explained so we can be comfortable and move forward.

Please pray for us to make our decisions wisely. We want to glorify the Lord in all we do. It's still forecasted to really be hot the rest of the week. We are trusting God with the weather and the wisdom needed to go forward. We plan, in between now and Saturday's meeting, to just chill (figuratively and literally). SDG LN

Home Inspection Day: And The Results Are...

Today, we had the home inspection. Let me first say, we had every confidence that all would go well going into this. Maybe because of the encouragement and guidance we have received from our agent, Jennifer Lampe, or because we believe the seller, J.D., is a very honest and forthright man (and we are pretty good judges of character) or maybe because the prayers of all those who have been praying for us, as we go on the last leg of this journey. I think it is all of the above.

So here is how it all went down. It was a very hot day for our area, in the mid 90's. I started the day at the doctor's office getting my routine blood work to check my A1c and get an unexpected Pneumonia shot. We got home at 11:00am, and Rob made me us a late breakfast. I was starved cause I had been fasting. We got a phone call. It was our agent, Jen. She wanted to change the time we meet of the inspection. the home inspector team had called and had finished the previous home and wanted to come early. The time of 2:00pm was moved up to 1:00pm...not too bad since we all wanted to be done as soon as possible.

We arrived just at the same time as our agent, Jen. The seller, J.D. welcomed us all in and a few minutes later the home inspectors, JJ & Suzanne Grieve, along with their niece Ashley, arrived. We did the intro's and then Suzanne & Ashley set up their hi-tech computer stuff and JJ got to work doing the hands-on (dirty) work. After about an hour and a half, the inspection was completed. Then JJ & Suzanne went through the completed report. They printed it on site with color photos ...very cool! After fully explaining the results and taking any questions we had, the final word was...the house was sound! No major repair expenses! Only minor stuff, most of which we could handle ourselves (with a little help from our friends, I hope). We can sign off on it and go forward knowing the house is not a "money pit". We really found a good house!

Now, that we have got over that hurdle, we wait for the appraisal to be done. Our mortgage advisor, Mia, was called by us to let her know the inspection was over and the house was good enough to go forward. She ordered the appraisal and in about a week, Lord willing, we should know if the purchase price we offered is approved by FHA and our lender for our mortgage. So, we ask again, for your continued prayers and your support as we wait some more....until the appraisal...have a great week everyone! LN

Understanding Closing And Settlement...

This was a cute video that explains the stage we're in right now of buying our first home. We aren't using the Title Company mentioned, but, I still wanted to share it. Hope you find it informative and entertaining too! LN

Home Buying Tips

Very informative with sound advice for anyone currently thinking about buying a home today. Hope you find it helpful. LN

Top 3 Mistakes Home Buyers Make Before Closing...

Good information! Our inspection is scheduled for Monday, July 27th.
We will definitely take to heart what we learned here. LN

All's Quiet On The New Home Front...

Today has been a quiet day. "No news is good news" as they say. Instead I took care of some family matters, caught up on some phone calls, updated my other blog, cleaned the apartment, puttered around in the patio garden and finally updating this blog. While I was on the patio looking at all the plants in containers, the hostas "Howard & Hoss", my 25th anniversary flower Hanging Basket and the roses , it hit me that this would be our last summer here. So I grabbed the camera and starting clicking away. I wanted to get this all for later reminiscence. I uploaded them to Facebook. So anyway, a quiet day is good...soon we will be busy, busy, busy. Rest now for closing day is 36 days away! LN

Wednesdays Update

Hi everyone. Yesterday after work, we went to give our earnest money to the Escrow company handling the closing on our home. It was a wierd day. I think it finally hit Rob. Afterwards, on the way home, he got really giddy, you know, laughing at stuff he normally wouldn't laugh at. Then I started laughing at him laughing. Well, when we finally got home we settled down and realized that we just bought a house! I guess we both have sorta delayed reactions to big stuff like this.

Then today, I got emailed, by our agent, the final approval letter that shows from the Seller's lender that everything is approved for sale, as specified in our Purchase and Sale Agreement and Addendum. After downloading it, I read through it, or actually I skipped through the beginning legal mumbo jumbo to the figures of what gets distributed and how much. When I saw all the amounts I think that's when it finally hit me how much money is involved here. I knew it in my head, but somehow seeing it on paper with the bank's logo, it seemed so formal. And it should. It is formal and final. At least at this point of the journey. Next we have the Inspection. Everything could change then, depending on the outcome. If the Inspection shows anything major, that we can't afford to fix or don't have time to fix before closing to appease FHA, then all is off. So please be praying that all will go smoothly next Monday. We'll know on Monday the results of the Inspection so we'll post again that evening. Thanks for all your prayers...L

It's Official!!!

Well we got the official call today from our agent Jennifer...we have been formally approved by the bank for the short sale of our home...Yeah!!!! That means the seller's lender, who was selling the home to us for less than he owed his lender, approved our addendum to the original purchase and sale agreement. The addendum was filed Sunday night at midnight due to a little misunderstanding between our agent and the seller's agent. But not to worry...thanks to 21st century technology Jen emailed us the addendum and then we signed it and drove over to her house (only a short distance) and hand delivered it to her. Then Jen scanned it in and made a pdf and sent it on it's way the seller's agent. So, anyway it all was in to the seller's lender by 9am Monday and today we got the formal news...we have bought a house!!!

Our First Home

Well it finally happened! After living for the last 13 years in a small 1 bedroom apartment, we found a cute little 2 bedroom 1 bath house, with a fantastic yard, a garage for Rob, front porch, back deck with a hot tub for me, and all appliances (except washer/dryer) and put an offer in and guess what...it was accepted!!! Well, it didn't happen at all like it sounds. If you want to hear about it, keep reading.

This whole thing was such a learning experience and leap of faith for both of us. First, we had to look at lots of houses before we found this one. Most of them online. Actually, we looked at hundreds of houses. Plus most of the time we didn't think we could ever afford one. But then, after we went through almost 5 years of faithfully paying off all our credit cards, saving when we could, not taking vacations, and living off very little, we came to a point when it seemed like it just may be a possibility. Then interest rates started to drop, and so did housing prices, and it really seemed possible. Then we found out, through our credit counseling program, about a class we could go to that would qualify us for down payment assistance and then it really started to look promising. That class is where we met our Mortgage Advisior, Mia, who is why we are able to buy this home. She encouraged us to try and we took her advice to heart.

Then more incentive came through the $8000 tax credit, but actually we weren't too thrilled about it at first and here's why. It basically caused every Tom, Dick & Harry to enter the first time buyers market which already didn't have a lot of houses available anyway, not in our neck of the woods. Also the down payment assistance programs which had also received stimulus funds, were starting to flooded with applications. (Our own DPA ran out of funds just yesterday and we had to go with a back up State run agency.) I guess that's what the Feds wanted..to stimulate the housing market..and it sure did around here.

Well anyway, then we met Jen, a really honest and forthright young woman, who became our agent, and then it happened... we found this home. But, it turned out to be a short sale. What's a short sale? Well it means the seller is selling the house for less than he owes the lender. There is alot of homes like that right now on the market due to the housing market bubble bursting and many homes lost value starting in 2007. our seller was a nice man, who had lost his wife and was being laid off from his job. He really wanted to sell to avoid foreclosure and we wanted to help. Well, we had been praying for some time about finding a home and we just wanted to glorify God and trust Him so we stepped out in faith. We made the offer and the seller accepted.

That was back on April 9th. So let's fast forward 3 months to now. So yesterday, we found out the seller's lender will let him sell us the house for our agreed amount including some closing costs. Yeah!!! Aren't you happy for us! We hope so.

So that brings us to the present. What's next you ask? Well, now starts the actual process that normal home sales go through...appraisal, inspection, title searches, underwriting our mortgage, closing and so on, until our closing day which is set for August 28, 2009. That's the official day that we get the keys, but a few days before, we actually give all the money. In our state you don't get the keys for a couple of days so that everything can be funded and filed with the powers that be.

So there it is! We can hardly believe it, so I'm sure if you know us at all, you probably are the same! We started this blog mainly to document the process till closing and the initial move. Some of you may not have known at all that we were going through all this. Sorry for that, but everything was so iffy at times, we just wanted to keep it to ourselves till we knew we could actually get under contract. And since now we are, we wanted to share our good news with all of our family and friends. Please be praying for us. Your prayers are the means God uses to give us wisdom and discernment when making these decisions.

Please enjoy the movie above, that we made of the photos of the house. If you want to see the photos instead of movie you can click here to go to our photo album or scroll to the bottom of this page. These pics were taken for the listing and are all we have currently. When we get more, we will be sure to post them. Love, L&R

Hello World!

Hi everyone! This is the first post to our new blog "Neytropolis". We hope to use this as a forum to share our thoughts about the world as we know it. Rob and I will be sharing the blog although I will be doing most of the writing and posting of stuff. We plan to keep our readers current on what's happening in our life, our thoughts on current events, interesting news found on other blogs we frequent, photos, videos, and music we like. We hope our friends and family will enjoy it as much as we do in creating it together. Blessings, L&R
[This photo was taken after our recent session creating a music video with our ERC Choir. We'll let you know when it becomes available.]