Petersen Family

It’s been a long journey - that much is true. Josh and I finally made it, and we’re now homeowners! I promise we will post photos once we get in the house, but for now you can look at these.

Some of you had no idea we were even still looking at houses. We were really discouraged after our last let down and missing the tax credit, but we decided to power on and move forward. Just after finding out we wouldn’t get the West Jordan house, Josh and I printed out a list of about 30 homes (at least) to go look at. Kadee wasn’t available to go looking right away, so we were going to do our drive bys first. We had this little habit of trying to drive by houses before having Kadee take us to officially see them. This was we could get an idea of the curb appeal and neighbor hoods. It helped us weed out a lot of properties so Kadee didn’t completely go crazy with us. We had gone through all the houses and came out with about 6 that even had potential for us. The next day, a Saturday, 3 new houses came on the market, in our price range, supposedly having the qualities we wanted. We went past the first two, and we were unimpressed. Feeling discouraged and lazy, we almost went home instead of going to the last house. The third house was in Riverton, and we didn’t want to deal with the drive, but I figured we had nothing else to do, so why not. We got to the house and instantly saw potential. The lot is .26 acre, with a two car garage and a shed. It was a split entry like we’d seen before, but we knew it was vacant so we went to peer in the windows (I know, we’re dorks). We couldn’t see much, but we loved what we saw. I text Kadee and told her that we wanted to make an offer. This house had been listed for a few weeks, but just reduced their asking price by $12,000.

Kadee called the next morning and said she’d just gotten our message and had a few minutes to meet with us in about half an hour, so we could do a walk through and make an offer. We went to the house, walked through, and loved it even more! We made an offer, giving them till Wednesday to respond. By Thursday, June 10, we were Under Contract…again! We’d be spending $5,000 more for this house than the West Jordan one, but we were getting so much more – better location, more living space, move in ready, bigger lot, etc.

We thought we’d have plenty of time to get everything done, since our lender had most of the info they needed to approve the loan, and we’d been approved for the other house. What we didn’t anticipate, was the holiday. The 4th of July took up some valuable underwriting time, and just after the 4th, our loan was declined! We’d been processing the loan solely under Josh’s credit, since mine still hadn’t recovered. The new underwriter said that because Josh works for his brother, his income wasn’t verifiable as is, and needed to be averaged for a two year period. Well, two years ago we went through layoffs, part time work, and unemployment. So when averaging that in, Josh’s income was significantly lower, than what it really is. It was super frustrating, especially because both all 3 Josh’s coworkers (brother included) just bought homes!! But because of the “familiarity”, there’s a possibility that the numbers were being fudged. Good grief… At this point, we were devastated, we needed to close by the 15th, and we didn’t see how that would happen.

After some brainstorming, we decided to check my credit score, to see if there was any chance we could use my credit, to give us the additional income. Surprisingly, my credit had raised enough that I qualified to be on the loan. Within minutes I’d sent my information to the lender to put me on the application. We put together letter of explanation regarding just about everything, just in case the underwriters asked, we had it. We wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any more delays.

On Wednesday, July 14, I received the email from the lender, FINAL APPROVAL! I was freaked out! I ran to tell my coworkers, and immediately called Josh, my grandma, and my mom. From there, we were supposed to get the closing done within the next day. Last I’d heard our closing was at 5, which was good because Josh is usually off by then, and I’d just have to leave a few minutes early from work. At 3:08 Kadee text me “Did you know your closing is at 3 today?” I called her and sure enough, it was moved to 3! Josh was in Tooele still and we were apparently late! We both rushed over there, and got everything done by 5:30. It was crazy!

Also, for the record if you want the shows on HGTV, like House Hunters, they aren’t accurate. At closing you don’t get keys. You have to wait for the loan to fund and record, essential the money has to be transferred first. So we’re still waiting for this to happen, they said hopefully 24 hours (by around 2, fingers crossed) we should be able to get our keys. I’m nervous, because with everything else that’s gone wrong, I can just imagine we’d by stuck waiting till Monday and we need to be out of our apartment by Sunday night! Yikes! We’ll see!
**Update** It's funded and recorded! We're OFFICIALLY homeowners!!

We’re so excited to be homeowners, even though it was a long, stressful process. We appreciate all of the love and support from everyone and can’t wait to throw a big party (hopefully about 3 weeks).

(PS - Words in RED are links)