@MovingForward_2012 wrote:
Great! I hope you find something you like! Keep us posted!
Thanks! I certainly will!
Starting Score: EQ-484(10/10/2011) TU-533(10/10/2011)Over the weekend, went and looked at a number of houses (I think we had selected 12 from the list of available properties provided by our realtor). Saw a lot of great places, in 3 distinct locations across our price range.
After viewing each property, we kept comparing it to the first one we had seen, a large short sale in a really great neighborhood in a location that we really like. Convenient for me to take the commuter rail downtown for work, and close enough to a number of retailers and grocers so convenient for my spouse. We are going back tonight for a second viewing, and if it's as great as we remember, putting an offer in. LO was really great and ran all the numbers for the property to get me the estimated payments, etc.
**Fingers crossed as realtor called today to let us know that another couple had taken a second showing yesterday** I just want us to have the opportunity to decide whether or not we really want it.
Well, it took a few days for the seller's realtor to link up with the seller to review our offer. At that point they disclosed that the original mortgage was an FHA, something they had not initially disclosed, or the realtor hadn't asked. In any case, this changed what we could ask in seller paid closing costs from 3% to 1%. This change, in addition to the seller's wanting to fight us on them leaving the appliances, we decided to walk away from this home. It was definitely a bummer, but it seems like most everyone has to have an issue with at least one house during the hunt.
Credit situation is changing slightly, I paid down my largest cc balance which on last report posted at $5500 to $0. Really frustrated when I looked today (wanted to see statement balance) and saw that my zero balance yesterday morning changed to $51.00 when AmEx charged me a finance charge just before statement closing. So what I was hoping was going to report as a zero balance with zero min payment on the statement will end up being $51.11 with a $51.00 minimum payment. Once my other cc updates the balance reported I'm going to rapid rescore through the LO to reflect the zero balance.
We go to look this weekend in some other areas. The housing inventory in our area and price range is really limited, we are checking out a new area that has alot of new construction. We are going to look at lots, and see what our options are with new construction.
Thanks for being my sounding board!
Well, hadn't updated in a while, so thought I would. Since last month we've made a great deal of progress. I was able to get a much better feel for where we sit with pre-approval from our lender. Using this figure we began entertaining the idea of new construction, as inventory is so limited (lots of split-entries in our price range, and we really want to avoid them if possible.)
Our realtor found a builder who will finance the build of the home and then allow us to purchase once complete using my VA loan benefits. This is nice because we are able to choose our lot, select a home plan, customize it, and avoid having to come up with a great deal for down-payment or mess with a construction VA loan. We went and looked at various lots in our preferred area and found some in a nice neighborhood for less than half of what they had been selling for 5 years ago. We have selected a lot (the builder ended up purchasing a number of lots in the neighborhood and intends to build a model home in addition to ours here.) We met with the builder and architect to discuss floor plans, and have pretty much decided on our preferred floor plan, the architect is just making some additional changes, and then we should be ready to move forward!
This certainly wasn't the route I thought we'd be taking, but am so happy that things seem to be falling into place! This route also allows us to continue to build our savings for either more down at the time of closing (which won't be until this summer), or for miscellaneous consts that will arise as we move into our first home!
Thanks for reading!