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August 2012 Moms
piphigirl
member
Buying a house is crazy!!
piphigirl
member
My husband and I have just moved 1,400 miles from Florida to our hometown in Michigan. Tomorrow morning we are supposed to close on a house, but in the last two weeks we've gotten more and more information that is turning us off. What we thought was a serious fixer-upper that could eventually be a cash flowing rental needs MANY more repairs RIGHT NOW. As in, we can't get an occupancy permit from the city without spending $$$ in the next 30 days. (It's all work we would do eventually, but the city wants it done now.)
We've basically decided to pull the plug and find something else. We have two options that we could make cash offers on. One is HUD and needs work, one looks move-in ready. Husband is agreeable to buying a house that needs less work - more time for his business and to focus on baby stuff.
I am so, so, so glad to have him interested in less of a fixer-upper! He's really seeing that we need to work on baby stuff right now, not house stuff. I've been feeling like the world's worst mom-to-be because I have NOTHING for this kid and no house to live in. We are waiting to shop until the house issue is decided.
Anyone else dealing with the home buying process? It can be really frustrating!
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Re: Buying a house is crazy!!
Yup. We're in the midst of waiting on a short sale. Our lease ends June 30th, so fortunately, my parents have offered to let us stay with them rather than us signing a year lease and paying to get out of it. So, this weekend we moved everything except furniture into storage... the furniture goes to storage Tuesday and we're living out of our suitcases at my mom & dad's.
The frustrating part is that the seller forgot to initial a page and we've been waiting TWO WEEKS for her to sign it so that it can get sent to the bank! What's so hard about some initials?
We settled and moved in about a month ago. By "moved in" I mean all of our stuff was physically in the house, no rhyme or reason, and the next day we were on a plane to Nova Scotia to see my family. We were supposed to have settled about two weeks prior, but our timely (ha!) mortgage broker left things to the literal last minute, with very little regard to the fact that if we didn't have the keys to this house by the day we were flying out, we'd lose our stuff because our landlord was sick of us pushing back our move out date. I have never been so stressed in my life.
Anyway, alls well that ends well I guess.
We put an offer in on a house (short sale) in November. It was a strong offer and the realtor said it should move well because we had everything on our end done up front, no inspection concerns, etc. Fast forward to April, we got a verbal approval of the sale just waiting on the letter from the bank. Fast forward to May, got the letter finally, that said we had to close by the end of May but needed another appraisal. End of May comes and goes, appraisal not done. Appraisal finally done the beginning of June with a close date in the middle of June, and the seller gets 30 days to move out. Putting us moving into the house approximately 3 weeks prior to the first of our son, when the house needs work (paint, new carpeting, major cleaning).
To top it off, we have to move out of our apartment at the end of June and would have been homeless barring the hospitality of family in town, because I still need to work and our parents don't live near my work.
NEVER again will I buy a house when I am pregnant. I am truly surprised the stress hasn't resulted in pre-eclampsia or early labor.
SCANDAL!
This is us! Our entire Florida house is currently in a trailer. We're staying at my parents house, which is somewhat normal as we typically do this for 2-3 weeks every summer. If we're not taking ownership of a house by Thursday, we'll need a storage unit for the trailer stuff. It will be like moving twice, which kind of sucks.
I'm kind of sweltering. My parents house is cool in the mornings and evenings, but my upstairs room is SO hot. In Florida, we obviously had AC that worked like a charm because you need it. My parents AC in Michigan is just wimpy, so I hate turning it on.
We'll be at the beach cottage over the 4th and I'm looking forward to it. It can be 10+ degrees cooler on the lake.
We are planning on buying a house next year, working on getting an at least 10% down payment for a house first. We are lucky because we just moved into a house we are renting, and our landlord does a month to month lease where you only have to give 30 days written notice and all is well. This way once we get our down payment and find what we want we don't have to worry about breaking a lease.
I have so much anxiety over the whole home buying process though. It seems so foreign to me, especially since neither of us have even had a car loan before. Good luck on your move and congrats on being able to move on the house that is less work!
I bought a home last year that was in short-sale, and we had to negotiate with three seperate banks to make it work.... when all was said and done it took 7 months to close! But it was so worth it - we found a home we would never have been able to afford before the housing market crash, and have a very very low interest rate. We had to do a ton of repairs, but they were mostly cosmetic and just did the final piece of the puzzle by refinishing the original 1950's hardwoods this week!
It seriously took us about a year and a half to fix it up, so I think it's smart of you to go with something a bit more move-in-ready since you'll be having your little one so soon. I would have been SO stressed out doing all of this if we had a baby at the time.
Good luck!
OP, I couldn't imagine doing this pregnant! I bought a HUD home 3 years ago, and that was a long, stressful process. It worked out great in the end, but I wasn't able to move in for 3 months because the house needed work, the bank wouldn't give extra money for the repairs, and I didn't receive my home buyer's credit for many months.
At least you have some place to stay while you work on a house. I got a great deal on my HUD and was able to renovate and make it my own, which was fun. I too am in Michigan, West Michigan actually. There are lots of amazing houses for sale in our city/neighborhood, so you should hopefully have your pick. Good luck!