Those of you who follow me on facebook may already know most of what this post is about. Thursday evening, we went to look at houses with our agent. We looked at probably 10 houses. We found one that we loved. It didn't have "everything" but it had almost everything, and we were happy with it. We wanted it, and we wanted it badly. Asking price: $129,900.
Jonny and I discussed it Thursday night and decided that we wanted to offer the asking price, if the seller would make a few updates for us and pay all closing costs. On Friday, I called a lender to get preapproval so we could put in an offer. Long story short, we didn't qualify for that amount. Collectively, between the two of us, we *should have* qualified, but because of the housing market, lenders have toughened their criteria. Jonny not being full time, and only working at his part time job for 3 months meant that they would not count his income in the approval process at all. So therefore, it was all on me. Well, I didn't qualify for that amount by myself because of my student loans, and when they are going to come out of deferment and be due. Gee, thanks grad school.
I really do understand it from the lender's point of view - I just wish they would have counted Jonny's income because that is how much on the fence I was being able to qualify.
But I guess it's a sign that it's not meant to happen yet - or at that price. Truthfully, that was just a smidge over what I really wanted to pay. The problem is that of the other homes we looked at Thursday night that were lower in price, I was really not impressed. I don't mind a little bit of elbow grease, but it needs to be almost move in ready, and if I'm going to have to replace ALL the carpet because it smells like cat piss, it had better be a bargain. I'm not going to pay alot of money if I'm going to have to put alot more money in to it to make it work. I don't mind ugly paint. I don't mind ugly 70s wood paneling on the walls. I dunno - I really don't think our wishes are unrealistic in our price range. I know there has got to be something out there in the low 100s that has potential. And I'm determined to find it.
I thought our realtor would be upset with us, but she wasn't. In fact, we saw her at church this morning and said she would be in touch with us later this week. She said she had other agents looking for us, and she said she is determined to help us find what we're looking for.
Nonetheless, we're going to keep on plan of paying as much of our 2 remaining non-student loan debts off as quickly as we can (hopefully by Christmas) so that if we haven't found a home by the first of the year, those 2 debts will not factor into our preapproval process, and hopefully we'll have more options available to us. On one hand, I've learned that the kind of home we "really" want,is probably most realistically in the 130-150 price range, but on the other hand, there just might be a diamond in the rough out there....perhaps a foreclosure that the bank just wants off it's books....with some cosmetic upgrades, it would be good as new.
So, we continue to look, while continuing to pay down our debt. The right one will come along, and when it does, we'll be ready for it.
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