Good News / Bad News

As some of you may have heard, Josh and I once again had an unfortunate month. I will tell you all the tale of how we almost bought a house.

The government decided to extend the tax credit to those who could be under contract by April 30, 2010 and close on the home by June 30. Our apartment lease was up at the end of April, so we just went to a month to month lease (at a rate of $100/month extra), so we'd be free to buy a home and move.

After going through many credit issues, we were finally pre-approved Wednesday, April 21, leaving us just more than a week to find a house and get under contract. That night, Kadee (Josh's cousin-in-law / our Realtor) took us to several properties, when we finally found something we liked enough to make an offer. It was an offer for the exact asking price, but with them paying our closing costs.

On Friday, April 23, we found out that our offer was rejected and the seller took an offer for just a few hundred more than ours. We were so upset, but knew we still had some time. That day, a property in West Jordan came on the market. We wanted to see it, but Kadee was unavailable till Sunday, April 25.

Sunday came, and about 10 am, we went to 3 properties. The one we liked most was the fixer upper in West Jordan, but it was a great price and location, we were sure we didn't have a chance. We decided to take our chances and make an offer.

Thursday, April 29, we were finally under contract! It was a great house, that certainly needed work, but it would be worth it in the end, and we just barely made it to qualify for the tax credit.

Throughout the month of May, we did our inspections, got an appraisal, saved every dime and nickel we could, so we'd be ready to close on June 1. We were so excited. We got measurements of the entire house, and we were planning all of our improvements.

The weekend of April 17-18, Josh and I packed most of our apartment, including food and stuff. We could live off the "easy" stuff for a few days.....

April 21(ish), Kadee called us to tell us that .... there's a 30k tax lien on the property. At first we were told the waiver would be release June 22, so we could close June 23. It was a bit of problem because we'd given notice to our apartment complex that we'd be moving June 6. We'd still get the tax credit and figured we'd find somewhere to go for the 2-3 weeks between being out of the apartment and closing. A bit of a problem, but nothing to major.

A few days later, Kadee finds out that although the seller had applied for a waiver of the tax lien, the property can't transfer hands for a period of 4 months after the application for the waiver; which would push our closing date to July 27. This would cause us to lose the tax credit, basically causing us to not really want the house anymore, due to the fact that we wouldn't get the funds to do the repairs necessary.

The seller recommended that we submit a lower offer, as in maybe we could buy it for less due to the loss in tax credit. The mentioned that there's a loophole that we could still get the tax credit if we filled a certain form that we were waiting on the sellers financing. So we requested to do these things, just to have the seller decline all of it!! I don't know why they suggested such things if they were just going to say no.

Needless to say, Josh and I were beyond upset to hear that once again our plans to buy a home had been burned. Due to seller non disclosure. If we'd have known we couldn't close till end of July, we wouldn't have wasted the time on this property, not to mention the $200 inspection and $460 appraisal (NONREFUNDABLE). It was devastating. Still is.

Now we had a whole separate problem. I spoke with our leasing office at the apartments Tuesday, June 1, to see if we could cancel our moving and just stay. Apparently, they'd already rented out our apartment!! We had to find somewhere new, or we'd be homeless come Sunday!!

Wednesday, I called to double check with the leasing office (I didn't really trust the first girl) and it was confirmed that someone else was moving in after we were out. About 5 minutes after we'd hung up, the girl called back. She said she was going to try to call the new tenants and ask if they'd take the apartment across the hall from where we are, because that one is also vacant. I was so grateful. I had no idea if it would work out, but even if they declined and still wanted ours, worst case scenario, we could just move across the hall.

The girl from the apartments called this morning, and luckily the new tenants agreed to take the other apartment! Now we don't have to move and we're not homeless!!

It's been an interesting month, a roller coaster of emotion and pain. We're so grateful to have a place to be right now. We're not giving up hope, and we're still looking for a house, but now were not under a time crunch. We're upset about missing the tax credit because of this, but we're hoping that prices will maybe drop a little bit again and we can still find a good deal.