We're buying a house!

UPDATE!!!!

Those of you on FB already know this but...we found a house!!!

So after some hiccups with prequalification, we finally got word on how much the bank was willing to give us right now. We weren't sure if we wanted to hold off and wait until we could pay more debt down, so we could qualify for more, or look within the parameters they would allow us. We decided to go ahead and look, because there may be something perfect for us, and at this price range, the payments would be low...

We found one last Thursday that was slightly out of our price range, but we decided to put an offer in on it anyway. We thought the seller might be motivated to sell, and maybe we'd be lucky. Nahh. We were a little bummed, but figured it wasn't meant to be. In fact, we turned around and went looking at houses again on Sunday, and THAT is when we found "the one..."

It was the second house we looked at on Sunday. We both were very impressed. Pros about the house? 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a separate shower and garden tub in the master. Covered Carport, hardwood (okay, parquet) floors, Vaulted ceiling, BIG kitchen (yes!) Separate dining area from the great room, fireplace, storage shed...and something we just found out today after getting a layout of the ploy of land...a BIG BIG YARD. I see the clearing of some trees in my, er, Jonny's future....

So on Monday, we put in an offer, and after some back and forth banter, we became official. So then we started jumping through the VA Loan requirement hoops. the house is a Fannie Mae foreclosure, and they aren't paying for anything extra...They are taking care of the termite letter and that's about it. We ha to get septic records from the county, and scheduled a septic inspection. If the inspection comes back good, we're good, if not, we'll have to pay to get it pumped. Our buyers inspection was today, and everything was minor fixes that we'll be able to handle easily. So the next stop is the VA Appraisal. Our inspector informed us of a few things the VA appraiser may ding, but then again, s/he may not. So at this point, we're still in the waiting game. Once the appraisal is done, and we know what the VA requires to be fixed (if anything) then we plan to ask Fannie Mae to do the repairs, but we figure they probably wont, so more than likely, we will have to pay for those things to be fixed before we'll be allowed to close.

The crappy part of this whole thing, though, is that Alabama is a right to rescission state - which means that for foreclosed homes, the original owner has a year to pay up to be current and then they can reclaim their home. Say WHAT? So in order to protect ourselves, we have to buy title bond insurance, because we don't know how long its been since the house was foreclosed on. And...it's 1% of appraisal price....which is 121K. So I have to have $1210 at closing for title bond insurance. Crap. Well, in the grand scheme of things, that's not so bad. We're already shelled out our escrow and the payment for the septic inspection and buyers inspection....if things go well, we wont have to do anything else until closing, with the exception of any repairs the VA appraiser may require, which we anticipate will only be a few hundred bucks, if that.

So that's about it. We're now in a hurry up and wait situation. 34 days until closing. I pray that the VA appraiser doesn't find anything that we aren't already aware of, and that the septic is not in crappy (no pun intended) condition. Hopefully all will go well, and we'll close on time.... Weee!