Our House, Hopefully

I have mentioned that we were looking into buying a house. I haven't mentioned anything yet, because it kept going back and forth, but I guess I can give an update now that we have started the process.

When we decided to look for houses (and had no idea what we were doing), right away Reed's sister Amy told us about these houses that she knew about and wanted us to come to the open house. It was a Sunday afternoon and Patrick was asleep, so we just jumped in the car and went to check it out. There are 10 brand new houses that were built by an organization that helps low-income families. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and an unfinished basement. With the basement, it is about 2000 square feet, which is much more than we thought we could ever afford, but this program pays for the down payment and closing costs. Of course, we fell in love with this cute little house, so we started talking to a lender right away. We know someone who is in our ward, so we asked him to help us figure out what we qualify for.

The last couple of weeks have been stressful (for me at least) because I was communicating between our realtor, our friend who is mortgage broker, and a lender that our realtor was working with. It seemed like every day it would go back and forth. Yes, we can make this work; No, I don't think so; Yes, I have another idea; You qualify for this but not that, etc. There were a couple of times I was very frutrated and just wanted to go get an apartment. But my loving husband calmed be down, called the realtor, got all the numbers figured out, and we decided to go forward with the process.

And boy, it is a process. First, we had to submit an application with the city to get our income verified to make sure we qualify for the low-income housing. (You should have seeen me trying to tackle the fax machine on that one!) We should hear about that in the next week or so. Next, we have to submit an application with the foundation for the down payment assistance. Also, we are applying for a second $25,000 mortgage from them in order to meet the asking price of $139,000. This is a tricky process because we have to prove that we are poor enough to get the house but not too poor that we can still afford to buy the house. I'm sure we are making this more complicated than if we just waited until we could "really" afford a house, but we just think this is a great opportunity for us.

So to make a long story short, I don't know if we are getting a house. The chances are good, or that is what we are told, but who knows, really. We are hopeful, but not too hopeful. I guess right now it is just a waiting game, which you all know if you have ever bought a house. I am hoping we can move in by the end of the summer. I think that would be the best birthday present ever!