Meanwhile, since January...

No, I'm not pregnant.  We have other things on our plate right now, which I'm about to tell you all about!

In April of last year, we started taking a financial class.  Learned a lot, got ourselves on a better track financially (albeit with its fair share of rough points too), and made some plans regarding our future...where we wanted to be, what we could expect in x amount of years, etc.  

And then that all changed, as it so often does.  When we closed out the various outstanding medical expenses our little bundle-of-joy's arrival had gifted us with, we had planned to begin using my paychecks toward school debt. The goal was 2 years, and we'd be debt free.  A very exciting thought.  But then Christmas hit, with that bed issue, and we started thinking: "How long do we really want to be under the thumb of these landlords who look the other way when something happens?"  Ants, mold, leaky garage, sewage issues...they only address it when they have no other choice.  And in most cases, their idea of no other choice is MUCH farther down the line than ours is... :P

But then we started thinking again:  "Do we REALLY want to move again before we buy a house?"  Moving is such a chore.  And moving 3 people is exponentially worse than moving 2.  If you don't believe me, let me take you to my basement where you can see ALLLLL the STUFF that that 3rd person has added to our collection...  

And then we looked at what we had in our accounts.  And looked at each other.  And emailed our realtor friend straight off.  :)

It's been 5 months since that first email.  What a ride it's been!!  We can't afford a lot of house, and it's the city, which makes it that much harder.  Most of the homes in our price range that we've looked at have been foreclosures, and there were a couple that were...pretty exciting...though not necessarily for the right reasons.

The first one we saw was near the "Little India" neighborhood, and I could almost smell those samosas as I envisioned us there.  The house looked charming on the website, although there wasn't a picture of the kitchen--so we figured we'd have to foot the bill for a new kitchen, something that would be included in the cost of the purchase.  (oh darn, I could create a kitchen-of-my-dreams for my first house, right?)  And then we got to the place.  MY oh MY how those pictures did LIE.  Half the roof was covered with a tarp!  The steps to the entrance had a railing of plywood!  There was water damage everywhere.  A fireplace had been yanked out, strewing insulation all over the floor.  Potentially live wires hung out everywhere in the torn-out kitchen.  I lasted about 2 seconds upstairs--I was terrified I was going to fall through some rotted flooring or something--and we didn't dare even *try* the basement.  Scratch that one right off the list!

Then the next house we saw, we wanted the moment we saw it (hello, roller coaster!).  It was like our dream house, right there, just holding its door open to us, inviting us in.  And we (read: I) was devastated by the fore-knowledge that there was no way we'd be able to get it.  It was a georgian-style home (very square, and no slanted ceilings like the bungalows that are much more common around here), and it was literally only 3 blocks away from our current place, in a great school district.  It was huge, had a beautiful lot, beautiful original tiles, all these wonderful features...but it was at the top of our price range, and being a foreclosure (which was the reason it was in our price range at all!) that didn't need much work, we knew bidding would be very competitive.  But we went ahead and tried anyway, making this the first house we put a bid on.  We got beat out by someone who offered cash (CASH!) at a higher price than what we bid for a loan.  Well.  Can't fight that.

The second house we bid on was considerably smaller, and definitely not in our neighborhood, but it WAS very close to some of our friends from church, and further north near where I like to shop.  I wasn't sure about the place at first.  It wasn't bad, but it needed a lot of work.  Like, a LOT of work.  The kitchen had been torn out--there were holes in the walls--paint was peeling in big chunks from the living room ceiling, windows had been broken in one of the doors, it was radiator heat (and we really don't like radiators...)...  But it was super-cheap because of all that, and had a really nice layout.  Very similar, in fact, to the layout we have here, which we really love.  We went to see it a couple times, then decided to take the plunge and put in an offer (again, that lure of making my own kitchen in a city that is notorious for horrible kitchens...that's hard to pass up!).  We waited for 2 weeks or more for the bank to respond (though we kept looking while we waited), and the more I thought about that house, the more I liked it, and the more I could see myself in it.  And then the day after Easter, as I was checking things out on Zillow, I noticed that it was gone.  Just totally gone.  Not listed, not even showing up when I zoomed in really close so that all the homes and their prices could be seen.  Despite being a foreclosure, it was no longer for sale.  The bank never told us what happened, and all we could do was move on.

So move on we did.  I think it was the week after that that I went on a little marathon with our realtor as we expanded the search to see what else we could find.  We saw 4 homes in the space of about 2 hours.  One of the homes was so badly overgrown with mold that we didn't stay for more than a couple of minutes...and I was still coughing by the time we arrived at the next house 15 minutes later.  We didn't stay long at that house either though, because we both agreed that its location was terrible for us.  But the other 2 homes were possibilities.  We hemmed and hawed, and finally decided that we really weren't in the mood to try to build our own garage, even though the yard and house were so nice...and higher on the price range, too.  So we put a third bid in (that magic number, right?) on a house that was technically a 2 unit building.  There was a garden apartment below the main living area, and the attic was finished into one full room.  This house also needed a kitchen, and there were some mold issues, which we thought had probably arisen from a faulty radiator.  But we envisioned being able to use the garden unit downstairs for guests or meetings or the like, and the house itself was pretty solid, and offered plenty of friendly living space.  A few days after we put our bid in, we were told there were multiple bids, and that we needed to submit our 'highest and best' to be considered.  So we upped our bid price a little...but not by much.  We weren't going to get drawn into a bidding war.  And of course we lost that bid too.

So there we were, kinda depressed that 3 bids had come and gone, and we weren't any closer to getting a home of our own.  In the meantime, we'd been emailing back and forth with our landlords, who had informed us that they were *not* interested in going month-to-month, and put up a for-rent sign in front of the building THE NEXT DAY since our lease was set to expire a month from then.  (and yet it takes them HOW long to fix th...but I digress).  We managed to be diplomatic despite this, and eventually signed a lease that will extend our rental payments through the summer.  But we will not be signing another lease with them.  Period.

BECAUSE.  We are now under contract!!  Here's how fast this happened, after all those months of waiting and looking:  Literally just a day or so after that third bid fell through, on a Tuesday, another house suddenly popped up on the market.  I went to see it Wednesday evening, we worked out a bid that night, and the owner accepted our bid on Thursday morning!  That.  Fast.  There have already been several little "God Moments" with this place.  First off...It's NOT a foreclosure!!  It's listed as a 2-bedroom, but priced as a 1-bed because the owner tore out a wall of the 2nd bedroom to make it an open office--he literally devalued his home when he made it more suitable to himself.  Our realtor and the selling agent are old friends and former co-workers--that part has been huge for us--it's all in who you know!  The Wednesday I went to see it was also the Wednesday that record-setting rain began to fall.  Not only was I able to see what my commute would be (same as it is now), but I also spotted some trouble-areas in the house that don't show up in dry weather, and that have since been resolved as a result.  Despite being near the river, the basement didn't leak at all.  The house itself reminds me very much of the second house we bid on--that house that grew on me--and that makes me very happy.  Plus it has central air, newer windows, updated electric, space in the kitchen (though it needs more counters), and plenty of extra room elsewhere too.  It's on a slightly wider lot, too, which means there is room for gardening, playing, and grilling on a patio or deck (whenever we build that) all at once.  The garage is new and insulated (a huge plus for my guy who likes to do his own work on the car).  And the upstairs, despite being a bungalow, has high ceilings, and an already-partially finished room that will serve well as a private office.  AND we have several friends within a mile radius of us...one family is only 2 blocks away.  There is definitely work that has to be done...the stucco siding is in bad shape, and of course Munch needs that wall added back onto what will be her room!  But it is livable now, and if all goes smoothly, we close at the end of the month!  We hope to move in in July, when the work is complete.  YAY, happy dances!

Meanwhile...Our landlords have decided that they want to sell this building.  Hm, can't keep up with it anymore, eh?  They had a photographer here today taking pictures.  I spent the last week packing up, throwing out, or giving away a large portion of our stuff in an effort to declutter...but also to keep *my* stuff from showing up on the web listings *they'll* make.  Need to pack anyway, so that just gave me a closer deadline, really.  These next few weeks should be...very...interesting.  One thing we would like some prayer for, though:  it would be really nice if we didn't have to cover both a mortgage and rent for the last 2 months of that stupid lease we were essentially forced to sign...We can if we have to...but it would be really nice if we didn't have to.  But I must say, I am sooo thankful that I can actually say that we CAN.  Because a year ago, we were in a very, very different world.

Here is our future home.  It'll look a lot happier in a couple months!  I can't wait to share it with you then.  God is Good.