#1

I've never blogged before but I thought I'd give it a try.

Sam and I got married November 1, 2008 and are still living with my brother... It's not as bad as it seems since we don't see him all that often and the rent is the right price but we're ready to have a house of our own! We have been looking at houses and gotten very close to actually buying one for nine months! I feel a bit like Goldilocks not being able to find the right one.

I always seem to go back to the first house we looked at. It's a bit more than we would like to spend but certainly within our price range. The owners listed it on FSBO but rented it to someone who lost their home in the flood so it wasn't available until January 2009. We looked at it twice and put in an offer. We negotiated back and forth but couldn't come to an agreement and ultimately walked away. We thought it wouldn't be hard to find another house we liked. We looked at A LOT of yucky houses.

We eventually found a house that had some cosmetic upgrades and some of those "upgrades" were not exactly in out taste. A few examples: The kitchen was painted in all primary colors. Each cabinet was a different color! A few of the bedrooms were painted in extreme colors- think vibrating hot pink! The owners not only painted the rooms but also all of the trim and doors in these colors! We knew fixing these "upgrades" would take some time and elbow grease but we really felt the house had good bones. We put in an offer, they accepted and we moved forward with inspections and appraisal. The inspection did not go so great- they found evidence of termites and an area that needed better ventilation. The one thing that really put the nail in the coffin was the flood insurance. The house was in the 100-year flood plane- we got an insurance quote before making the offer and it was very reasonable. The bank was not willing to finance the house at that low of coverage so the monthly rate went up to a rate we weren't willing to spend. We spent many hours working with our realtor to get out of this deal. We finally got out of the deal and were left with paying the bank for their work but we did get our earnest money back- phew!

So now we are looking and looking for our house. The first house we looked at has not been sold so we have the option of purchasing that house- if we can agree on a price.

Wow- I rambled!