House scoop...

I have a new reader. Yeah! Here's the info on the 2 houses we went to look at.....

http://lil-mousehouse.blogspot.com/2008/09/tale-of-2-houses.html

We made an offer on the tri-level house. We were very surprised that it was accepted. We expected to haggle back and forth for a while, especially since we were offering appx. $29k below what the listing price was (and that had already gone down $10k)...

Turns out the lady was widowed, they were the original owners of the home, and she was moving closer to her family, so she just wanted out from under the home. The caveat for taking such a low offer was that she didn't want to have to fix any major repairs if the inspection came back as 'bad'--we have to have an inspection in order for our loan to go through. We will be using a VA loan, and they do everything they can to protect the buyers, i.e. if the home is appraised lower than the agreed upon price, then the VA will cancel the loan. If there is major structural, mold, etc. etc. damage, the VA will cancel the loan. Basically it's all done to protect US Veterans from getting shafted when they go to buy a house. There are no points or any of that garbage, just a low fixed rate. It also allows us to buy it with 'no money down' --which is a good thing.

We also have a low interest rate locked in with a local bank, with a chance of it going even lower, and a chance for a buydown, with the lump sum being paid by the bank. Basically, in this market, the bank is trying to reel in everyone else's customers. If we close in October, we'll get 1% point knocked off of our mortgage for the first year (about $118/month less in payments)--with the bank kicking in the $1400 from their own pockets. In the meantime, if we make payments as if they were 'regular' payments, then we will have not only their $1400, but our own 'extra' $1400 in there as well. Oh and since we got the house for such a low price, we should have about $40,000 equity automatically in the house. I've heard that's a good thing. I can't even fathom what it means right now, but I've heard it's a good thing.

The only downside we are seeing right now is that since there was no haggling, we didn't get a chance to request that the seller pay the closing costs, so we will be responsible for those. And since we've been so diligent at paying off bills, we don't have a huge savings right now. We used our savings to pay off our truck and my student loan in the last 3 months, so we'll have to borrow enough to pay the closing costs outright, probably from our current bank. They love us, of course, because we paid our truck off in 3.5 years instead of 6, the same with every other loan we've gotten from them.

Basically, we are going on faith that everything is going to be alright. Movers are coming to pack us up THIS Thursday and Friday. They can store our 'stuff' for as long as 30 days. The house seller agreed to let us move into the house a little before the closing date since I'm hugely pregnant and we've got to be down there so soon. We have to pay rent and have at least renter's insurance, which is only fair. We'd like to stay in a hotel for a few days (should be at his new work's expense) and get at least the nursery painted if possible before we get our stuff out of storage. This would be between Oct. 13th and 16th. Matthew has some info sessions on Oct. 15th and orientation on Oct. 17th. He'll start work in earnest Oct. 20th. That's also the date of my first doctor's appointment with my new doctor. Can you see how we say we are going on faith? Basically, we're saying 'Yes, Lord' and putting one foot in front of the other without looking down, up or out. We're being careful and paying attention, and asking questions and opinions and advice, but basically we're just doing whatever seems to 'fall into place' without much other guarantee.