Tag: Home Purchase

Rescheduled Again

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, UncategorizedLeave a comment

After being home most of the day, we left to run some errands.  The sky opened up and began to pour down rain and around the same time we received an email from the lender telling us they were missing a form they had sent us to complete, sign and return to them.  They requested we complete the form, sign it and get it back to them asap.  So, while I’m driving in a torrential down-pour, hubby begins to search thru all the documents and finds the one they are missing.  It was one of several documents the lender had asked us to complete 1-2 weeks ago.  A document we had completed and signed.  A document hubby had scanned and emailed to them within 24 hours of their request.  He re-sent the missing document letting them know it was sent previously and should have been in their email records.  The lender confirmed receipt of the document and told us everything was back in the hands of underwriting.

A short time later I received a call from our realtor telling us that closing has once again been changed.  Instead of closing at 8:30 tomorrow morning, we’ve been pushed back to noon.  All because the lender neglected to submit a document.  Of course we must not forget that last Friday our closing was pushed out to Wednesday and we were guaranteed it would be the last time.  Instead, it’s been rescheduled again.

I can’t say any of this is too shocking.  After all, this is the seventh time our closing has been scheduled and rescheduled.

  1.  June 15th – the seller requested a later closing date so they had time to find a rental.
  2. May 26th – the seller found a rental sooner than expected, so everything was moved up.
  3. May 27th – appraisal wasn’t received in time.
  4. May 28th – appraisal needed updates and the updates weren’t completed in time
  5. May 31st – appraisal updates still weren’t completed in time
  6. June 1st – appraisal updates were completed and our file submitted to underwriting for final approval.  Closing at 8:30 a.m.
  7. June 1st – lender didn’t include a document needed by underwriting so closing pushed out to noon.

As of 6:40 this evening we’ve been guaranteed that underwriting will review the last document and we WILL be closing tomorrow at noon.  Until all paperwork is signed and we have keys in hand, I will not trust this is the last reschedule.

Once everything is truly done, I’ll post and share more detail.  Until then, I’ll wallow in my frustration and continue preparing for our eventual move.

 

 

WEEEEEEE!

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I jumped the gun yesterday.

Even though we were told closing was happening Tuesday morning, it appears that wasn’t accurate.

Around 7:30 last night, our lender called to let us know that closing has been moved to Wednesday.  It’s due to appraisal changes underwriting is requiring and the appraiser didn’t get them done yesterday.

We were promised this will be the last change, but at this point we’re not trusting anything we’re told.  After four changes, it becomes a little difficult to trust what we’re being told.  On top of that, underwriting is asking for more and more documentation.  It feels that as long as they have more time, they’ll just keep us busy chasing down documents. 

Our moment of joy dashed and now we wait to see what will actually happen.

On the bright side, I found out this morning that roofing materials were dropped off and tomorrow the roof will be replaced.  This was something the seller told us they would do from the very beginning and documents were signed stating they would replace the roof. 

With all the storms we’ve had this spring, I’m quite sure they wanted to wait until the last possible moment to try and avoid any possibility of another hail storm damaging the roof while they still carry the insurance on the house.  I’m also sure they didn’t want to default on the agreement, which would have given us the power to back out of buying the house.  Not that we would at this point, after all we’ve been thru just getting here.

So the roller coaster ride continues and with each blog post, I’m taking you along on the ride.

WEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Happy Dance

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, Uncategorized2 Comments

The appraisal has arrived!!!!

It was sent after our lender left for the day yesterday, so technically on time, just not during the regular work day.

As of today we’re signing all necessary documents to close Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m.

We’ve informed the RV Park of our departure.

I’ve set up our accounts for water, gas, electric and garbage.

I’m contacting all our creditors to give them our new address.

I’m contacting all providers of junk mail and telling them to quit sending me junk mail J

We’ve been shopping for things we’ll need for the house and making plans for move-in.

I’m still feeling stressed, but now it’s a good kind of stress.  It’s the kind of stress that makes me do the Happy Dance!!!!!!!!

 

The Saga Continues

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Closing has now been pushed out to Tuesday because the lender still doesn’t have the appraisal. 

The fact that the lender doesn’t have the appraisal is not shocking in the least.  We are working with the VA and they are not known for expediting things.  However, the frustrating part in this is that waiting until Tuesday means we have lost the entire three-day weekend.  A weekend we could use for moving things to our new home.  The weekend, when friends and family are off work and more able to assist us with getting things moved. 

I expressed my frustration to our realtor and she suggested we sign a temporary residential lease that would allow us to move in prior to closing.  It would cost us a little bit of money in rent, but would at least allow us to spend the weekend getting some things into the house.  It would also give us a more solid date and we could begin doing things like having the utilities switched over to our name, get address change notices out and make arrangements to move out of the RV Park now instead of continuing to put it off while we wait to find out if and when we’ll close.

So, we signed the document and now we wait to see if the current homeowners will agree. 

The saga continues!

 

That’s How We Roll

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Our home purchase experience has been full of ups and downs.

First we found a fixer-upper in Arlington.

–          Offer made

–          Nothing back from the seller on the offer

–          Finally, a new offer is made

–          Offer is accepted

–          Home inspection completed

–          Roofer out to inspect roof

–          Seller decides she will not replace the roof

–          We walk away

 

Next we find two houses we like.

–          Offers made on both houses

–          Counter offer comes back on our favorite of the two

–          Counter offer accepted

–          Home inspection done

–          Paperwork moving along smoothly

–          Sellers request an earlier close date

–          Request accepted

–          Problems with VA entitlement

–          Problems resolved

–          Waiting on appraisal, which needs to be completed and to the lender in three days

–          Realtor suddenly realizes the termite inspection hasn’t been ordered

–          Trying to expedite termite inspection

Yes folks, we are down to the wire.  No getting everything done early and then sitting back and waiting on closing.  Everything in our life needs to have some excitement built in, because that’s how we roll 🙂

 

The good news is, our realtor sent me a text yesterday letting me know that the appraisal is due to be completed within the next 3 days.  If it does get completed and to the lender by Monday, we’re good to go on Thursday.

We’re trying to bring this to an exciting finish!!!

Stay tuned.

Check and Check

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, Uncategorized, Upgrades4 Comments

Today, the girls and I drove to the title company and gave them the earnest money for our Tuscany home purchase. – Check

The home inspection is scheduled for tomorrow morning which is an important next step in the process.  The inspector has given us a really good deal on doing a pool inspection as well, so everything will be covered. – Check

Although I’m still guardedly excited, my excitement over buying this house continues to grow. I’m especially excited about the prospect of completing the upgrades in a Tuscan style décor. After all, the house is on Tuscany Ct.

 

The next 1-2 weeks will be crucial as we get the inspection and appraisal done. One or both will determine if we move forward with this home purchase, renegotiate the deal or start shopping for a different home.

Fingers crossed!!!!

1, 2, 3, 4 . . . . . Our Tuscany House

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, Uncategorized1 Comment
  1. Find a house you want to buy.
  2. Make offer on house.
  3. Offer accepted.

We were able to check items 1 and 2 off our list on Tuesday, then we spent the following two days waiting on the counter offer. It didn’t help that the seller’s agent told us (via our agent) that we would be getting a counter offer on Wednesday. We didn’t receive it.  She told us the same thing Thursday, but no counter offer had been received by that afternoon. At this point, our agent decided it was time to have a talk with the woman representing the seller and that seemed to get the ball rolling.

The end result was that we needed to resubmit a new offer. Not that our offer was bad, but we had requested some upgrades be completed on the house and it was challenging to write a counter offer addressing those requests.  So I ran thru the numbers with our realtor and then Dave talked to her and went thru numbers again. In the end, we all felt like we had come up with a reasonable offer.

This morning, I had another conversation with our realtor and went over the numbers one last time and then she was off to call the seller’s agent to discuss the new offer. Considering how many documents we signed just to make an offer, I can’t say I blame her for wanting to have a conversation with the other realtor before completing paperwork.

About an hour later, I got a text from our realtor letting us know that our offer had been accepted. Then a couple hours later, we got another slew of documents to sign and we are now officially in process to purchase a home.

At this point, I’m guardedly optimistic.  There is a lot that needs to happen before this is a done deal, but we are definitely on our way toward home ownership again.

I am calling this house “Our Tuscany house”.  It makes it sound like we have a house in Italy, when in fact it’s just a house on a street named Tuscany.  Still, it’s fun to say, “Our Tuscany house”.  🙂

Our Tuscany house needs some upgrades, but it has just about everything we were looking for in a house. The only thing missing in more yard, but finding a house with a yard and a pool is difficult, so we went with the pool.

I guess this means we can check #3 off the list.

Now on to . . . . . .

4.  Inspections completed.

Introducing the home we hope will very soon be the Weeks’ Casa.

You can see more photos here.

Wish us luck!!!

Finding the Perfect Home

On By debweeksIn Home Purchase, Uncategorized2 Comments

Now that our house has sold, we are taking baby steps toward future home ownership in the DFW area. Currently, we’re living further north than we would like which means hubby has a commute. While that is fine temporarily, we certainly don’t want to settle this far away from his job. Yet, we are still trying to familiarize ourselves with the area which makes it challenging to even have discussion about where we might want to live.

Recently, I contacted a realtor to gather some information and she is now set us up on a listing portal. The listings we receive are only those houses that meet our requirements of radius to hubby’s job, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, price point and swimming pool. While we’re not quite ready to preview the homes, we are very ready to take a look at the neighborhoods. So the girls and I ventured out last weekend to drive by a couple of the houses on our portal and it’s amazing how much you can learn just from taking a drive.

We checked out a couple different neighborhoods in Carrollton, TX. One home was in an older neighborhood and the other in a newer neighborhood.

The older neighborhood had cute little homes, with well-kept yards, nice sidewalks and we didn’t see many cars driving thru the neighborhood. We did see a little boy run across the street and cut through the yards and as we drove past the back of the house, the same little boy was playing basketball with a friend. Granted, we only spent about 10 minutes there, but we very quickly sensed it was a nice neighborhood and the longer we drove around, the more we liked it.

The newer neighborhood, while not terrible at all, didn’t feel like home. We spent a couple minutes driving around and then left because it didn’t feel like a place we would want to live and the way a neighborhood makes you feel is as important at the house.

Since any homes in that area would cut hubby’s commute in half, we’ll leave Carrollton on our list of possibilities.  (To get a better idea of his commute, we live just south of Aubrey and he works in Irving.)

And as a side note, the first house we drove by had just gone on the market a couple days earlier. It’s no longer on our listing portal, so apparently there is already an offer on the house.   Not all houses on our portal have gotten offers yet, but they are houses that we aren’t fond of. Apparently, most people looking at them feel the same. I wanted to get a better idea of how much preparation we need going forward, so I chatted with the realtor about the speed in which houses move in the DFW area. In essence, she said we will need to be ready to make an offer on any house that feels like the right house for us. No taking a few days to think about it. No going back for a second look. If we look at a house we like, we need to spend time in that house and then make an offer. Otherwise, we risk losing a house that we really like the first time through.

We’ve only purchased two homes in our lifetime. There was no rush on our first home. We were able to look at the house and take a second and third look before making an offer. We built our second house and spent months looking at house plans before settling on the one we liked best. So this will be a very different process for us and I plan to put together a check list of “must haves” and “wants” that we can carry with us when looking at houses. It’s very easy to focus on something really nice about a house and miss other things that aren’t so nice because we’re too focused on one or two great things about the house. Knowing we may not have the opportunity to take a second or third look at a house, we need to go in with a very definite list of priorities and make the offer when we find that perfect house.

Because I would like to keep a record of our home buying experience here, my blog will become my record keeping tool.