To Be House Poor or Not

[Leslie]

This is totally off topic, so I thought I'd do it's own thread. Feel free to skip.

DH and I have found a house we both really like. I got pre-approved for a mortgage, so once we sell our house we could buy this one. The thing is it will run us REAL tight monthly. I've never been what I call house poor and am used to being able to spend money when I want (DH is the same way). We would really have to change our spending for awhile. My FIL says it's ok to be house poor for a year or two. His analogy is that your income goes up but your house payment stays the same. He said that every piece of property they've ever bought has made them house poor for a year or two (including their condos at the beach and in the mountains).

It just really makes me nervous. Any stories anyone would like to share or any advice? All this is probably in vain anyway, because we HAVE to sell our house first. I'm sure the sellers won't take a contingency contract on the house.

[Leanna]

Leslie- If your house payment is more than a quarter of your bring home pay, you are living above your means and taking a big risk. We bought our new house without the contingency of selling the old one. If we had to make that extra house payment every month, we would have been pretty crunched for extra money... yet the bank approved us. We got incredibly lucky that the other house sold so fast. It was worth it to us but then again we knew we wouldn't have both payments forever. Good luck!!

[Jacque]

I'm usually really conservative with money...cheap would be a better word, I guess...but I do have to say this...

We are generally not house poor...but with infertility treatments we became house poor for awhile. It really is a horrible feeling. Anyway, I think most people will be house poor at one time or another in their lives for some reason...but as long as it's temporary...

I guess you need to decide if you think it would only be short-term. I know you don't have a crystal ball...but it's a horrible feeling to be house poor....

I probably wouldn't do it...but like I said, I'm really conservative when it comes to this kind of thing...and hate the feeling of insecurity. But, some people don't worry as much and would just go for it- and sell if it became too much! I think it depends on your personality...there's always a way out if you get in too deap if you're willing to do it...then the risk isn't so large, you know?

[Jacque]

I think they can do some kind of loan where they pay your other mortgage until your house sells...I don't really know anything about it, but I've heard about it.

[mara232]

I wouldn't do it. It just makes me nervous. I like having extra $$ for emergencies. Last month our furnace went ($900) and needed a car repair ($400) all in one month. If we were on a budget that month would have blown it away. I guess it is really what you are comfortable with.

[Sherri]

We were not house poor on two incomes, but on one, we are. It is very difficult, but it's a choice we made so C could make a much needed career change gradually while staying home with Ava. We are happy in our neighborhood/school district, but are really praying our heater makes it through this season. I think if we had factored living on one income for some time into our househunting, we may have made different decisions, but it is what it is.

[Leslie]

We don't have a mortgage on our current house... it's paid off. I want the money from the sell of our house to make a decent size down payment on a new house.

If DH was working the payment on this house wouldn't bother me in the least little bit. He's not working though, and he's going to school to boot. He is looking for work and if something comes up he will quit school and take it. He should be finished with school next May. At that point he will either find a job here, we will move so he can find work or he will be looking for a new wife. :twisted:

I just HATE these types of decisions and am very nervous about the whole thing.

[MommyX3]

Leslie-
That is totally us right now. we went from a 800sq ft 2 1/2 bdrm to a 2200sq ft 4bdr. our mortage went from$800. a month to $1900. and I just got a notice my mortage is going up because they think the mill rate will go up in 07 so to cover 07 taxes they raise it a bit @$500 more a year.

But the return on the house when we sell will be huge and you can't put a price on the comfort level we now have, enough room for a family of 5.

So we are truely praying we can pay our bill each month, and think back to how nice it was to have an $800 payment. Its a bit stressful but not as much as the kids having no indoor and a crappy outdoor playarea..

BUT with the way the market is don't get stuck with 2 houses. My folks built a custom house with the purpose to sell @$600,000. and it sat empty for 22months, and my brother who buys fixer upers sat on one for @9months and ended up just turning it into a rental property. For use our old house sold in @80days but we did loss the 1st house we had an accepted offer on for 3wks because they had a 2nd offer without contingecy 4days later we had a girl make us an ofter then we found our house we're in now a much better house then the 1st one we found....

Just pray about it! Thats what we did and we got our house @$15thou under market. Good Luck!

As far as being tight, just limit your buying for the new house, but do try to right in your offer a home warrinety incase anything major goes out after you move in. A good source for money help is Dave Ramsey on the radio or the net.

Ok I'll shut up now I just get so excited about buying houses... after selling our my dh really belived I would go into realestate...

[elsie]

I'm very conservative ... peace of mind to me is worth much, much more than extra rooms. Like Mara said, it always pours when it rains ... we had a $2K car repair month back in Nov. with Christmas right around the corner and ds1's birthday earlier in the month. Also in my parent's county in NY, the assessors just made a tiny boo-boo and instead of the taxes going up 2.5%, they're going up 25% -- in one year. Yes, the taxpayers have to pay, and no, they're not happy!!

When my dh was in school full-time (although he was also the breadwinner -- worked full-time overnight) our low house payment was what allowed him to take unpaid leave here and there and work no overtime to focus on school. In general there is very little pressure where our mortgage is concerned and I love that freedom. Our realtor was very reluctant to show us our house b'c she knew we could afford more and it is quite small, but we persisted and are very happy with this choice, 8 years later (this week!). We lived in a condo before this and had a similar situation with an extremely low payment ($400/mo for everything) but it was in a semi-rough neighborhood and we sold it when our kids were 3 and 1 to buy this house. With those kinds of bills my dh was able to take 2 mos. family and medical leave from work when ds arrived ... pretty hard to beat.

We live in 800 sq. ft house and truthfully, it is plenty big. We all go to the Y in the evenings to avoid feeling like we're right on top of each other and in the summer we spend all our time outside (we do have 6 acres of land). I figure the house can grow with us ... and I really like keeping a close eye on the boys, esp. with the computer becoming more and more appealing to them all the time. My bro and his wife have probably 70% more income than we do and live in a similar house for the same reason ... just want the mortgage to be a very easy bill to pay at this point in their lives.

It's a personal choice you have to make but if you can possibly swing selling your current home and going to a small, well-maintained house with all new systems (furnace, septic if you're in the country, well and water pump if you're in the country) or at least with a seller willing to share costs if it needs upgrades, I say go for it !!!! It will allow you to consider returning to school ... which I know is important to you.

[hollydlr]

Since your current house is paid off, could you possibly make it into a rental and get some income from it to help with the cost of the new house? At least then you would have some ongoing income while DH is in school... Then again, you probably need to sell it to have a downpayment, huh?

I don't know about where you are, but it seems to be a national trend that markets are slow. That gives you some leverage as a buyer - they might accept a contingency if they really need to sell too. Also you might get them to pay closing, etc.

When we were looking for a house, we fell in love with one that was at the very top of our budget - really a bit above our budget. We could have made it work but it would've been tough. Anyway, we missed out on it in a bidding war, but we realized later that it would have been so much more stressful for us. We found another house a couple months later that was just as great and 30k cheaper, and haven't regretted it! There will always be another house, so if you can stick it out until DH has a full time job, you'll probably be better off...just my 2 cents.

[Leslie]

Leanna when you say not more than a quarter of your take home, does that mean the principal and interest or does that mean principal, interest, taxes and insurance? We would set it up that our taxes and insurance would be part of our payment. Either way if I take DH's Army Reserve income into account we would not be paying out more than a quarter of our take home pay. It still makes me nervous.

Holly I don't really want to get into the rental business. The house we live in now was DH's parents before he moved in. The bought it in the 70s as a place to leave when they retired. FIL was a Methodist minister, so they always had a parsonage to live in. He and MIL did much better for themselves than the expected, so they bought another house to live in when FIL took the conference treasurer's job for a few years before retiring. Anyway they rented the house for many years when DH was young. According to them many renters just do not respect the property. I have too many headaches without having to worry about a piece of rental property. It's a good idea though if I was up to it.

As for waiting to move... not an option in my eyes. They are putting a large Speedway at the end of our street. It is going to cause so much traffic that Arianna won't even be able to ride her ride toys. Of course we'd be out there if she was riding, but I just can't risk it. I'd also be scared that one day she manage to get out the front door and run into the road. For her safety I feel like we need to move soon.

Elsie I so respect you for making it in an 800 sq ft house with four people. We have a little over 900 and the place drives me batty. I feel like it's so cluttered. I told DH the other night that I feel like the harder I work on it the worse it gets.

I have thought about the fact that I would like to go back to school or be a SAHM for awhile once DH is gainfully employed. I think that is one of the reasons I'm so leary of committing to this.

Christine our house size situation is similar to yours. As I said we have a little over 900 sq ft and the house we like is a little over 2200 sq ft. Payments in your neck of the woods is scary compared to ours though. The 2200 sq ft house payment (including taxes and insurance) would be less than your 800 sq ft house payment. Of course I'm guessing salaries in our neck of the woods are much less than yours. It always amazes me to hear about housing costs in other places.

I DO not want to be stuck with two houses. I really feel we need the money out of our house for a large downpayment too.

Sherri thanks for the perspective about one income.

[elsie]

Leslie == you might be surprised about salaries vs. housing prices ... they don't seem to correlate in my opinion. When a housing market explodes, it explodes regardless of salaries ... more and more people are taking out interest-only and 40-year mortgages because they have no choice, even buying a starter home like ours.

One big thing to consider is how quickly the community you're moving to is growing: will they have to build new schools or undertake major highway projects in the next few years? Take a look at the last 5 years' or so tax rates ... does it seem like they've been stagnant for too long? Otherwise you could get settled into a financial routine for a few months then get hit with a major tax increase (I live in Taxachusetts, so I am probably overly paranoid about this). Or you can have a situation where the rate doesn't go up, but they do re-assessments and if the values are shooting up ... 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Our rates haven't gone up in 3 years but we're paying way more taxes b'c of reassessments.

But you're always taking a chance ... which is inevitable in life, after all. I wanted to stay in our old condo forever b'c of the bills, but our quality of life now ... well, there's just no comparison. I wish we'd taken the chance on keeping our former condo to rent, but we had such an eager buyer, it was nice not to pay two mortgages for any length of time. Still, it's tripled in value in the eight years since we sold it. Of course, this house has doubled in value too ... and believe me, salaries around here haven't doubled. I have no clue how people do it, except that in the dark ages when we bought this house (8 years ago) you actually had to have a major down payment -- we had to part with $20K to get in this house. I have a friend in NJ who just bought a $400K house with no money down.

[Terra]

Leslie--I'm not really sure what to tell you. We are building our next house now and putting our current house on the market. We are taking a risk doing this too. We would be able to flip double mortgage payments for a while, but we definitely don't want to get to that point. The company we are building with had a guaranteed buy out plan for our current house, but it also required us to put this one up as soon as we signed the building papers and we had to take the 1st offer. That would have forced us to move into an appt or something that we just can't do with our 2 dogs. So I'm just praying that everything works out for us. But I feel comfortable with our situation. And despite the rest of the country's housing market, our little suburb hasn't been effected at all. Houses are still selling in our neighborhood within 90 days average. I have a friend (different area of town though) who just put their home on the market and it sold in 48 hours for the full asking price!! So it depends on the area. That's great the other house is paid off...so you would never be forced to make double house payments. Hope you find something that works for you and dh though.

[lisamarie]

For use our old house sold in @80days but we did loss the 1st house we had an accepted offer on for 3wks because they had a 2nd offer without contingecy

What does that mean?

[MommyX3]

We found a house we just loved for sale, we made an offer with the contingency we sell our house first because we knew we could not afford 2 home loans. So they set a time limit for us to sell our house in and said if they had an offer from someone else with out a contingecy they would give us 48hrs push to sell ours or get a bridge loan something a lender will do when they know you intend to sell and not keep 2 house's loans.

Well several wks into it, I was decorateing the new house in my mind and someone else made them an offer who didn't have there own house to sell first. We get a call from our realtor we scarmble to do some fancy financing and prayed and realized if were forceing doors to open its not meant to be... so we withdrew our offer then just 4 days later we had an offer on our house so we quicky found a house to buy, and this was ment to be, it was much closer (2 minutes) to church, school, daycare. And was ready to move in. (the other one need some work)

In the realator world we made the mistake of not already having our house on the market when we started looking... Actullay I didn't even do any open house's or showings for a 2weeks, due to cleaning, painting, and de-cluttering a big deal when your trying to sell.

But still we ended up with the house we were ment to have even though we did know it was out there... Oh the funny thing, the house we bought, the sellers were pushing to sell it, before they lost the house they wanted to buy.. how funny...

Can you tell I enjoyed the realestate game?

[lisamarie]

Oh ok....I dont think we did that. The more days that go by the more I want this house. It has everything checked off on our list of needs. In our area with what we want and price its a dime a dozen and now Im thinkin we hsould have just went 150. I keep tellin myself it wasnt written in the stars if we dont get it... :roll:

[bays mom]

Lisa- don't give up hope. The house we bought was listed for 179, was on the market for a month went down to 169 and we put in an offer of 149...and it was accepted! If your meant to have this house it will work out for you!

[lisamarie]

Tonya...the only thing is..this house listed for 172. The person who owned it couldnt keep up with it..so the bank took it and lowered it to 150. We should have just bid 150. :cry:

[MommyX3]

lisamarie-
Ok you said bank took it over? Right? Was it a for clouser by the bank?
If so when does bidding end? We years ago had bid on a forclouser and it went above market value, the people who owned never even tried to sell it they just kept getting 90day 120day more and more behind.. guess they were hopeing to hit the loto.

So if he listed it for 172 but owed 150 on it what did you bid, (if I may ask)? Also check your city assesor site to see how much taxes are and if there are any past you'll be paying(assumeing its a forclouser) and what they consider the value of the house.. We sold our house 40thou above assesment and bought ours new one a few grand under assement... but the peolpe we bought from were about to lose the house they wanted and dropped the price 10thou after we did our first walk through.. just so we'd buy. lucky lucky us...

So when will you find out if you get it?

[MommyX3]

Terra- you could always let buyers know you willn't be out till such and such day... we looked at a house that the people said up front, were not leaving till the end of the school year.. a nice perk to give someone else time to sell theres.

Leslie-so what the verdict? You had mentioned wanting to put down a huge downpayment from the sell of your house... What if you buy then refianace when with the downpayment once your house sells? Although if you don't put down 20% loan to value you may end up with a higher rate till you refiance. I gotta agree and speedway is no place to raise a baby.. perhaps someone from the speedway would buy it.. is it listed yet? If not just through a for sale by owner sign up and see what you get?

I can remember just saying over and over how much I grew to hate my old house, it was so hard with 3 little one's and the toys I know exactly what you mean by not having enough room for anything.. but warning our new house is just as bad, just more room for stuff and toys and stuff and more sq ft for me to keep up with...

[Terra]

Christine--we wanted to try and do that--just tell them we aren't move out 'til this date. But you are not allowed to really do that with their guaranteed buy out plan. And we would have put the house up at least 6 months before our moving date. We didn't really think anyone who was house hunting would be willing or able to wait that long to move in. There are other houses in this neighborhood for sale too. We just looked at all the ones that were similar in size to ours--took their price and dropped about 4 grand off their price. We figure that since they are the same size that people might come and look at the cheaper one too. We have all the same upgrades and features, but we just want to sell it. We don't owe near as much as the house is worth, so we are willing to sell it for less. We will not be telling anyone that we are building though. Don't want them to see us as desperate and try to screw us. I'm sure everything will work out for the best.

[Leslie]

Haven't decided what to do yet. We actually went to an open house for a different house yesterday. The house is a tiny bit bigger and asking price is $22,000+ less. The advantages to this house are it has a much bigger yard and way more closet space. The disadvantaces are it's older than the other house and needs updating. The updating it needs is cosmetic, so it wouldn't keep us from moving in nor would it cost a ton to do. I just have not decided what to do yet.

I've been tossing around ideas about the down payment. I would feel most comfortable if we could just sell before we buy.

All we have right now is a For Sale By Owner sign in the yard. We've had a few calls, but I think DH has told them too much money and scared them off. We need to do some painting, etc. before we list with a realtor. Plus DH doesn't think anyone will look at it seriously until the Speedway is done. It looks pretty nasty where they are doing all the construction.

[lisamarie]

CHristine-It 'orginally' went for 172 grand...been for sale forever....The bank has it now...almost in forclosure..but they dropped the price to 150..we bid 145. We should have just bid 150. lol..Thats how bad we want it. lol

[Leslie]

LM $145 on a house they have listed at $150 is a good bid. One of the houses we are looking at is listed at $145,900. If we made an offer I would start off at $130 expecting them to counter. I guess my point is I think you made a good bid. When will you know something?

[lisamarie]

Leslie-OMG...I dont know..lol Everyday Im waiting on pins and needles... lol This house was orginally 172 though. Since the bank came down so much it might have p!ssed them off wiht our bid of 145. See we dont have a downpayment right now. So we would be puttin 0 down...then once our hosue sells..I thought the realtor said we would refinnace and then put down a big chunck..but now that I think about it..why oculdnt we just pay a big amount..why refinance?

Have you guys found much more? Any certain house stickin in your mind?

[Bella923]

Ok I am moving to Indiana!!!!

I can't believe the price of houses there!!!

Here 300K buys you a SMALL house!!!!!

Indy here I come! lol

[esarah]

Bella- Try Provo/Orem, UT area. My parents have a 5000 sq ft house with loads of upgrades for $290k and we got our 1500 sq ft house for $130k.

[lisamarie]

Come on over Bella! hehhe

[Leslie]

LM I absolutely HATE waiting... I am so not good at it. :lol: I hope you get it. It really is a beautiful house. It looks like it has lots of charm.

As for us, we are going to go back Thursday evening and look at a house we went to an open house for on Sunday. Here are pics of the two we are considering right now.

This is the one that would make me feel house poor - not quite 2200 sq ft
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/herdno1mac/House1.jpg

This is the one we are going to look at again on Thursday - just shy of 2400 sp ft
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/herdno1mac/House.jpg

The second house is about 200 sq ft bigger than the first. I know that's not much, but it's $22,000+ less than the first house. The second house is for sell, because the people are being relocated for work. I think that's why it so much cheaper. The second house has much more yard and closet space than the first, but it needs some updates inside. The first house has a playground just down the street from it. It needs updated some inside, but not as much. The second house come with a warranty, and I'm not sure if the first house does.

Decisions, decisions...

[lisamarie]

Leslie! I LOVE the second one! IT is so adorable!
The stone on teh front reminds me of an English cottage!

[Leslie]

I'd have to agree that the second one has more character.

So if you buy the house with no down payment and then refinance do you have to pay closing costs twice? I'm trying to figure out a way for us to buy the second house (if we decide it's the one) without selling our house first.

[lisamarie]

Oh I never thought of that..hmm..I dont know. I have been pm'ing Pauly ALOT for advice..she has been a tremendous help!

[MommyX3]

When we bought our house, we knew we'd need to refinance as soon as our credit scores were better to get us a lower rate.. (I first went to chase bank for our loan and they over 3mo pulled our credit 3x's dropping to just below a good score.) So we went with a morgage broker from our church, and to do the refinance he's not charging, but the title co. is, and then they have the city fees to. for us it would be @$2500. to refinance, but at a much lowr rate, within 24months we'll break even due to the new lower rate.

[mara232]

Leslie - I know everyone hates using an agent because of the costs - but if you really need to move your house faster - a real estate agent is the way to go.

I thought more about the house-poor thing. I think we maybe would go for it if it were our dream home. or I'd put my teaching certificate on hold for a couple of years until we got some good equity in the home.

Good Luck!

[Leanna]

Leslie- That second house is really cute!

Lisa- I hope they answer your offer soon! I know I asked but I can't remember, did you give them a deadline in your offer for them to answer you by?

[Terra]

I like the 2nd house too. Hope you find out soon!

[lisamarie]

Ok..so Im bumpin this thread of Leslies up for all of us house girls who are in/will/or wants to be process of sellin/buyin a home.

We hear tomorrow from the realtor about what the bank says..they will eitehr accept or counter offer. Then we need to be prepared to hire an inspector asap.
BUt I am overwhelmeld with so many emotions that I didnt realzie would happen. I figured that I would be so stinkin excited to move there was no lookin back. So not the case. lol
-I worry that Lucy and Tim will HATE this place...(even though they say they like it)
-It will be werid living somewhere where you dont know ANYONE. All my life Ive lived next to someone. Even though I cant stand his family..it was his family and that was kinda safe ya know?
Im scared there will be somethign wrong with the house...maybe even a ghost? LOL..I know Im a nutjob.
-I will miss our house we have now..it took me 5 yrs to get it exactly the way I want it..and this new house is nothing like the way I want it..and we wont have the money right off to do a fewt hings I want done.

Oh geez..I need to just get over it..but I had to let this out. lol Dh says Im gettin cold feet...Im just worried
He says if we get it for even the askin price that we got a good deal. Im just a suzie sometimes.

Ok...had to get that off my chest...lol

[lisamarie]

I know I asked but I can't remember, did you give them a deadline in your offer for them to answer you by?

No we didnt give them a deadline. The realtor told us up front that with banks it does take longer..but we were willing to wait because we had to get a few things taken care of(the car, informing family members of ours goin up for sale..etc.)

[wecova]

LISA: You are quite a freak job!!
Ghosts?? Okay, well, lots of homes go bump in the night because they are OLD!

I would be house poor if it meant that it was our dream property. Eventually you could redo it, fix it up, etc.
If we go to IDaho, I want to get a property with an outbuilding, a house of course, a mom-in-laws quarters (preferably seperate from main house) and maybe a barn. I'm not sure on the barn because dh and I don't have or know much about horses. But, I know if it's a rural community we can find trails and go out riding .. . . .I work in a place called "Horsetown USA" and I have many many students who are equine smart. They do barrel racing and gymcana or whatever it's called, and other competitive stuff. ANywy, as I've asked questions I've been amazed at the COST of owning horses, and add that on to your house payment, etc it's incredibly expensive!!

Weeee

[lisamarie]

and then I think...'oh my....at night when they all are in bed upstairs and I want to stay up like I usually do and watch tv or get on the pc..Im gonna be too scared to. At least with this single story I could haul a$$ to one of the bedrooms they all are in..but with a two story...Id have to run up stairs first. lol...Im a big girl...Id kill over half way up. lol...Guess its a good incentive to lose weight huh?

I just think about everything...then I thought about eh pond on it...we are gonna have to fence it in ..dont want the kids drownin in it. So IM a paranoid FREAK...I know I am.

[wecova]

Ghoood, as long as you admit it, mon frier, I'm ghood.
no ghostly stories from you, though, k? Anyone creap in at night just give them a flash . . . . .that oughta shock them enough for you to think of plan B!!!

I hear ya on the pond issue. Hadn't thought of that. That would take away property value, too, I bet!! Or, you could make a 4.5 foot tall "pretty fence" around an area you call "yard" and that could be where the girls play and you feel more comfy letting them out there, with their toys, or big enough for a swing set or something . . . . and if it's attached kinda to the house, or side of house, it'd be pretty obvious what it is. That would make the rest of the property more natural number 1, also it would be easy to remove when they get older (or any other bambinos get old enough, if you have more) number 2. It could be like see through. If it was or wasn't, maybe that might keep out some critters or small animals? ANother safety concern . . . . I have no idea what animals you'd be near but still!!

Weeee

[lisamarie]

Umm..your post totally lost me...lol

[wecova]

oh my gawd becky look at her butt!! I like big butts and I cannot lie, them other brothers . . . . . . . .

did that save it for you??

I"M SO RANDOM!!!!!!!

muah.
Weeee

[wecova]

I was talking about what you could do with the pond. You said that was another thing that you worried about . . .so I was talking about fences, and options to keep the girls "in" and not "out" of the pond.

Weeee

[Leslie]

LM you crack me up with the whole two story house thing. Let us know as soon as you know something about the gingerbread house.

Well, who know where we are at on the whole new house thing. I think I've pretty much ruled out the house that was the second one in the pics I posted. I know everyone who voiced an opinion said they liked it better, but it just needs so much updating. When we went back and looked at it the second time I realized that the ulitity room, which is big, has no ceiling. You could see all the pipes, etc. That room is also all cinderblock, so I'm sure it doesn't help with the house heating bill. There were several other things that would have to be done. I'm not talking about things like painting, I'm talking about more major things. We are also a little concerned about radon gas since it is an older house and the basement is almost all underground.

So this weekend we went and look at a house that we've decided is "the one". We would like to make a contingency offer on our house selling, but the realtor doesn't think the buyer will take it. Apparently the house is about to be foreclosed upon. Anyway, I think we are going to make the offer and see what happens. It's not a unique house, but it does have a large flat back yard, is in the best school district around here (probably in the whole state-but we haven't check the stats for the entire state) and it has the sq footage we want. I give up a garage, but I'm gonna have to choose between a garage and sq footage and/or yard to be in the price range I want. I'm happy to choose sq footage and yard over gargage. There is room to build a one car garage later on if we decide to. The house does need work, but it's things like paint. I would need new carpet (maybe not, but it's ugly and stained). The windows are three years old, the heating/cooling is five or six years old and the roof is five or six years old (the heating/cooling is one and the roof is the other in terms of five or six years). It also has a home warranty, so if anything goes wrong within the first year we shouldn't have to pay to have it fixed.

So that's about it on our house hunting.

[Leanna]

Leslie- Sounds like a nice home. I hope they accept your offer!

[mara232]

Good Luck Leslie!!

[lisamarie]

Leslie..that is AWESOME about the hosue! Thats so exciting! Good luck!

[Terra]

Sounds like a great house! Hope they accept your offer.

Now we just need someone to come around and make an offer on our house :D

[Leslie]

Ok girls I'm sick to my stomach right now. Bear with me as I don't have all the details. DH called the Realtor this morning to make an offer on the house. It was going to be an offer on the contingency that our house sells. The Realtor tells DH that someone has made an offer. Jump forward... DH is talking to a mortgage person (one the realtor told us about). DH says there has been an offer on the house. The mortgage person says she knew about the offer, but she thought it was with a contingency of the other people's house selling. DH calls me and we decide we will try to make an offer WITHOUT the contingency of our house selling. To do this I will have to borrow against my retirement. We have a few other options, but we think that's the best one at this point. Once our house sells I will put the money back, but this all just makes me a nervous wreck. I am a nervous person anyway. I am WAY more conservative about money than DH is too. UGH I just needed to get this out.

[lisamarie]

OH Leslie! How scarey!

Our realtor AND Pauly told us they will more likely chose you over the other folks..so thats great!

We are goin through this now kinda...once the bank says they accept our offer..we have to get a home inspection. Then I think she said it will take a month for the closing date BUT we asked if we could push the closing date back a month..that way it would be one less month of paying two housepayments...we still dont know if they are goin to do that..but we still want it if its just the regular month how it usually is. Anyways...IF they accept and we get the inspection...ONCE we find out if the inspection is all clear and we still want to go on with this..then we are gonna try like hell to sell ours. Right now we just have a sign in the yard..but once we know for sure about the Red house..then we will advertise about this house and stuff. So Im PRAYIN PRAYIN PRAYIN...that IF we get the red house...within a month or two our house sells..I know thats askin alot....BUT thankfully tax time is here and we are gettin a decent amount back..enough to pay for up to 5mths of house payments so we wont be horribly strapped with two house payments...it is SO scary especially since dh is the only one workin and we are strapped with bills the way it is(gotta take care of that afterwards)...but we had orginally planned to get things in order and then we would buy/sell in a year or two..then this fell into our lap and we KNEW it was right and we had to try...IF it falls through or there is somethign majorly wrong then I will be heartbroken but I know that theres a reason for it. Once we get it and sell our house..then I 'think' we are goin to refinance and put a big chunk of money down..not really sure how we are goin to do that...if we refinance or just pay a big amount on it...we will find out later. So anyways..I rambled on..but I do understand what you are goin through..

Ive very excited for you! It will all work out the way it is supposed to.

Is there pics of the inside we can see at a realtor website??? I love lookin at houses!

[lisamarie]

Oh yeah..after I worked out I went by the Gingerbread house with Jewels just to look around. Well the sign was there but just the frame. I dont know if it was took down or blew away..I cant see it blowing it away...Hmm..just wondered what was goin on....Usualy they dont take it right down..they leave those up and then put SOLD on it..hmm..just got my mind wonderin!

[lisamarie]

I have a question....gonna email Pauly too..but

When you are lookin at a house or in the process like we are....we looked at it once with the realotr....

am I able to call her and ask to go through it again? I really need to go through it again.

[Leslie]

I say sure you can. We asked to go through the house again last night before we sign the paperwork making an offer. They were more than happy to take us through again.

I might have missed it, but have you called the Realtor to see what the hold up is on your offer? That would drive me nuts! Of course I'm not a very patient person.

Well, we made our offer. Now we wait. Good thing is he only has until 8:00 tonight to respond. We ended up offering more than I wanted to, because DH went to the courthouse to find out when they bought the house and what they paid. What I originally wanted to offer was $7,000 less than what he paid for it in 2004. We knew he wouldn't even think about taking that. We came up and offered $2,000 less than what they paid. I expect them to counter offer, but time will tell. Is it 8:00 pm yet?

Here's a link to the house. There not many pictures of the inside. You get some nice views of the yard though. [mod note: LINK REMOVED: It is very dangerous to post this type of link as if you do purchase the house there are ways that a predator can locate you]

[tracy]

Just lurking...because we're never moving again :lol: The last time almost ended in divorce court, so we don't want to take our chances again... :lol:

But, Leslie -- that yard looks FABULOUS. :D So big, green and FLAT. I'm very jealous -- Arianna is going to be playing outside ALL the time. Make sure you save some $$$ for her play set :wink:

[lisamarie]

Leslie- If a normal person owned this house..we would have heard back within 24-48 hrs. BUT since it is bank owned..they take their time...the realtor basically said they dont care. lol There wsa one bid ahead of us...so the bank went over their paperwork...but in the mean time those folks backed out and got tired of waiting. So we are next in line. This house was VERY VERY close to goin to sheriff auction. Thats why they drastically reduced it. The realtor DID tell me that they will probably send ti to sheriffs auction if we dont want it. ..they are tired of dealin with ti.
So the realtor did say they ordered an appraisal and we shold hear somethnig soon.....I DO NOT have patience..but I have really acquired some with this whole ordeal..lol

THat house is so cute! For some reason this photo does better justice than the one you posted before. lol LOOKS GREAT! Im excited for you!

[Leslie]

Tracy the yard and the school district is what sold us on the house. We didn't really want a mid-entry (not that there is anything wrong with one), but they all just pretty much look the same. It does have the sq footage we were wanting too. We will definately be getting a nice play set.

Lisa I hadn't posted a pic of this house before. This is one we just found late last week (right before we were ready to make an offer on the house that everyone though was cute) and went to look at on Saturday.

I sure hope you hear something soon. Like I said I just don't know how you're doing it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you.

[lisamarie]

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Leslie..NO wonder this house looks different and I like it! LOL!!!!!

[tracy]

Don't feel bad, LM.

We closed on our house and I was in a fog -- too much reading legal docs, #s, etc. I didn't even know how to get there from our old house!! DH knew the way, thank goodness. :roll:

All I could think was, "well, crap -- we just signed our lives away for hundreds of thousands of dollars and I don't even know where the stupid house is!!" :lol:

[MommyX3]

Leslie - could you do a bridge loan? Not sure of all the details but that is what they suggested we do till our house sold.. Also, I believe if you don't borrow from your retirement and just put the sale of your house on your mortage toward principel I thank you'd end up paying less interest and pay it off sooner... but on the other hand no money down would put you at a higher rate?.... hmm ask about a bridge loan.

[lisamarie]

Oh yeah my sil just told me what they did. They took a loan out for 80% of what the house was listed at. Then took out another loan for 20% of the amount..that loan was used as a down payment. Then once they sold their house..they used the money they made off of that to pay off the 20%(downpayment loan) Which Id like to ask about that as an option for us..not sure yet though.

Leslie-Have you heard back from those people??????????????????

[Leslie]

Lisa we considered an 80/20 loan. Actually PMd Pauly about it over the weekend. We didn't look into it much further, because we decided we'd just go against my retirement (at least the interest I'm paying I will be paying to myself). My understanding is that the 20% loan is at a higher interest rate. We didn't look into how much higher though.

Well, our potential house situation is a mess right now. I think the guy is lying either about what he owes or about how far in default he is. He told the Realtor what his pay off is. Based on what DH found at the courthouse about what they paid for the house, he is saying his payoff is $2,600 MORE than what they originally paid for the house. DH went back to the courthouse today to see if he could find out what they finance and to see if there were any other liens against the house (like maybe he took out a home equity loan). Nope what he found was the guy put $1,850 down when he bought it two/three years ago (he bought it in 2004, but I forgot to ask DH what month). So based on that info we have figured out he is saying he owes $4,450 MORE than he financed. That either means he is way more in default than what he is telling the Realtor (he is say 2 months) or he's lying about the payoff. DH has proposed that we all sit down with together with the bank to see if we can work something out since the house is almost in foreclosure. Oh yea, the Realtor has said they will cut their commission from 3 to 6%, but that would still make us paying more for the house than what we want to pay considering the work that needs to be done. So... that's where we stand right now.

[lisamarie]

OH wow..thats confusing.

So you are messin with an almost foreclosed how too huh?

SHouldnt you know by gettin an appraisal of the place? Can you request this guy to get an appraisal and then I wouldnt go over what it appraises for. OR is he sellin it below or way below just to sell it?

[wecova]

Leslie: the thing about houses that is scary is that people depend on them for financial security. Obviously this guy wants to sell it over cost to recoup his loss and at least end up with NO debt. The reality of the market may be much different. Considering the repairs and the comps in the area, it may sell for one price, while he wants to sell it for another. Bottom line, if he's in foreclosure, or will be, he almost doesn't have an option. IN fact, if he waits too long the bank will sell it for themselves, he'll get nothing AND have a foreclosure on his record!

I say if he's the problem, move on to another house. . . . or just wait a few short months. The bank will sell for what they can to recoup, which will be much lower than his price I'm imagining. We get so emotionally caught up in the whole process that we make some poor or hasty decisions sometimes. If it's meant to be, then perhaps patience will pay off and it'll work. Otherwise, don't show how anxious or desperate you are, he will definitely take advantage of this and do things like . . .lie.

Good luck,
Weeee

[Leslie]

Weee you are so right about getting emotionally catch up in it all. We haven't look at a lot of houses, but when I went to see this house, I got the "this is the one" feeling inside of me. I hadn't had that with any other house we had looked at. It just stinks that this guy has let it get to the point that he owes more on it than he paid. What I really don't understand is he isn't even living there. Why would you move out and pay somewhere else? The only thing I can think of is he is living with his parents or living with a friend for free. Then I think what the heck is he doing with his money (I know he works).

About looking for another house... we've looked online at the houses in that school district. There is not one with close to the same sq footage, with the big back yard in the same price range. There is one that is the same price and has a huge back yard with about 400 sq feet less space. We looked at it too, but Arianna's bedroom would be so small. The people living there now have their girls in twin beds in each of the two extra bedrooms. All you could do in the room was walk around the bed, no room to play, etc.

Oh well, I'm just praying about it right now. If DH gets the job he is having a second interview for today, we would probably go ahead and pay the asking price. I'm just trying to be patient.

[Leslie]

I'm am so upset right now. The deal totally fell through on the house. Apparently the Realtor has been trying to get a hold of the guy since Friday. On Friday he told her he'd call her back on Sunday evening. He didn't, so she tried to get a hold of him three times yesterday. He finally called her back today. As I understand the situation there was someone who put a contract on the house awhile bac. He couldn't get the financing, because he was unemployed (duh). I guess this guy contacted the guy selling the house behind the Realtor's back and work a deal out where he will "rent to own" until he supposedly gets some kind of inheritance in a few months. Some of the neighbors actually called the Realtors today to inform them that someone was moving in. Anyway that's where we're at. I am so bummed.

[tracy]

Leslie (HUGS). Sorry it didn't work out for you.

Sounds like a shady situation with the guy and this other offer, so I'm glad you didn't get caught up in it. There's another (better) house waiting for you out there :D

[elsie]

Sorry to hear that, Leslie. I hope another house comes thru for you soon.

[MommyX3]

Leslie - soo sorry to hear about that bad deal.... Just keep looking as spring approches there will be lots of house's for sale..

[lisamarie]

Oh damn Leslie...Im sorry..

[mara232]

Sorry Leslie.

[lisamarie]

Im crappy..

The realtor did call and said she doesnt know for sure anything..BUT the main realtor who has the listing to prepare us for the bank not wanting to cover closing cost. I kinda figured that.

When this all started..dh got preapproved for a loan...the loan lady even sent us a paper sayin we were preapproved. Then I called her back a few days later askin how we would do the house payments..blah blah and how it would work with our house and just a few other questions. She then asked about our Pacifica that we were selling and made the comment that we are qualified for a loan with our current debt/take home ratio..BUT it would look better and we wouldnt struggle as much if we got rid of the two vehicle payments.

Well like I told you all before..dh got a hair up his butt and traded the pacifica in...even though I kicked and screamed and told him not to...I knew it would bite us in the as$.

So when the realtor called she said that Mary(the financial lady) wanted to know if we got rid of the two vehicle payments and I told her no and what Tim had done...she then wetn on to say.."I thought Mary said you guys couldnt get a loan if you didnt do that". I was SHOCKED! I told her about the paper and she acted as if I was lying..but I had it right in front of me.

So I todl her dh would call Mary and what not. So I called dh and flipped the flog out! He is supposed to call her and then I told him we need to get preapproved through two other places...(what I TOLD him all f-ing along).

Im so f-ing tired of that man acting as if Im retarded or something. Just because Im a SAHM Im not stupid....Im sick and tire dof him not listening and then he gets us in a motherfloggin pickle...grrrrr

[kirsten]

LisaMarie - I've known you for a long time now and I can assure your DH that you are one smart cookie!!!

I don't know what the market is like where you are, but we were able to get the seller to pay our closing costs. That helped a lot since we are stretched to the limit to make our housing costs.

Good luck baby-cakes!