Thursday, 9/19 Let it Begin: I can only hope and pray that this second contract on our house is the final contract we'll need. The family came by yesterday to look at the house again. They made an offer, we countered, they accepted and the contract was signed today. So... we're back in this! Now, off to find the house of our dreams...
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Monday, 9/23 Update: We found a house we really like Midlothian and put in an offer yesterday. So, waiting to hear how the inspection panned out for our own house and to hear if the sellers of the other house accept our offer or not. Eep!
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Friday, 9/27 Update: It's been an emotional couple of days, y'all. The inspection came back on our house and the buyers only asked for a few simple repairs. No problem! Their option period ended yesterday, so it appears we are full steam ahead on the selling of our house! And we were proceeding just fine with the Midlo house, the sellers countered, we re-countered and they accepted. Woo hoo, everything was falling into place beautifully. But then, all of a sudden, we found out that Midlothian was being kicked off the USDA land list as of October 1st. That didn't give us enough time to get everything submitted and close and all that. So, we can't use the 0-down-payment financing that was our plan. Y'know, the whole reason we were looking outside the "metroplex" in the first place, so we didn't have to come up with a down payment from out of nowhere (we are simply breaking even on the selling of our house, not earning anything in that transaction). But, after much prayer and conversation with a number of people (and each other), we have decided to continue pursuing that house with regular financing, and we'll come up with a down payment somehow. It's scary, but we feel confident that this is right, so we're pressing on. We have sent in our option fee, our earnest money and we have an inspector scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Please continue to pray for us in this quest... I know that God can and will provide, but my logical side is terrified at all the 'what ifs' that go into selling and buying a house.
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Monday, 9/30 Update: Ok, so the roller coaster ride continues! Late Friday night we received an email from our lender saying that our prayers are working because the USDA decided to postpone their changes, meaning we can still get Midlothian with the USDA financing. Crazy! Thank you, Jesus!!! Michael and I did a little jumping for joy, I must say! So, Sunday we had the Midlo house inspected, and it looks good. A few things are simply due to the house being built in the 1940's and the rules being different then, but nothing major surfaced. Woot. We drove around the town with the boys and checked things out. We played at the park right by our 'new' house. It was great. I believe we are gonna like it a lot! So, we will recap with our peeps today and see what the next step is... we gotta get both houses appraised still. Looks like our biggest concern at this point is closing at the same time so that we don't end up homeless for a while. Yikes! We are scheduling or working on the little things that our buyers asked for, and hopefully those will be finished out this week. Moving right along!
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Thursday, 10/04 Update: And then... the government shut itself down. Seriously, between last update and this, nothing has happened. NOTHING. As in, NOT moving right along. The government can't get itself together and it's just decided to quit, apparently. Meaning we can't submit our USDA loan... so it's not processing or getting approved. We were already worried about not closing in time and being homeless for a while, and now... well, it's pretty much guaranteed that we won't be able to move into Midlo any time soon. We are trying to negotiated a lease-back, and hoping the buyer of our house will cooperate and let us stay here till we CAN move, but we can't even give an estimate as to when that would be. There have still been no appraisals on either house, not sure what's up with that. Oh, this roller coaster ride is NOT the fun kind. I gave up the house situation to the Lord a long time ago now, so ... :::throws hands up::: whatever will be will be, right? God's got this. I'm just along for the (nauseating) ride. Massive prayers appreciated. I know this government shut down is affecting a lot of people in a wide variety of ways, so prayers for our entire messed up country.
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Monday, 10/07 Update: So, after hearing nothing for nearly a week, some stuff is finally moving forward. The government is still shut down so we have just given up hope on the USDA and are just going ahead with an FHA loan. It sucks for a lot of reasons, because the whole point of finding a home outside the Metroplex was to get use 0% down through USDA. NOW, we have to come up with a down payment, have PMI and all sorts of other things that are going to cost us more in the long run. And it sucks, because, frankly, we just don't have any more money to use towards all this. But, God will provide, and we have fallen in love with that Midlothian house and area and truly want to move there. So, anyway, we'll find a way... we truly believe that God has ordained this and it will work. Both houses were appraised today, and Michael has been answering questions from various sources (realtors, lenders, etc) all day long and hopefully we have everything together that needs to be together to get this ball rolling. The buyers of our house are going to let us stay here several days after closing so that we HOPEFULLY won't be homeless between closings. We just have to see how quickly we can get closed on Midlo now that we are finally working on the right loan. I am very sorely disappointed that the USDA thing didn't work out, especially after the roller coaster ride we had with it last week of not being an option, then yes being an option, and now we have a big fat no again. But... again, God's plan, not ours. He knows better than me, that's for sure. Carry on.
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Thursday, 10/10 Update: Wow... the story continues. We received word yesterday that the appraisal on our home came in under our selling price. Lame sauce. The appraiser was here for all of 7 minutes, no way he really LOOKED at the place. So, to my understanding, we have to come up with the difference between the appraisal price and the selling price, which means... we have to come up with more money that doesn't exist. Yay, magic tricks! No... we are just relying on the Lord to give us opportunities to come up with AT LEAST $2000 in the next 10 days! Not magic tricks... MIRACLES. Our realtor and lender are working really hard to negotiate things and crunch numbers so that we can make all of this work, but wow... the things being thrown at us lately, mind boggling. I am still confident that this is right, and we should move forward. I choose to believe that it's just the devil doing his nasty work because what we are doing is right. But he will not win, we will prevail with God's help. Lord, Jesus, MOVE THAT MOUNTAIN!!!
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Thursday, 10/17 Update: Fast forward a whole week and I've been a packing maniac. Today we finally made some headway and got some news on the status of our transactions. The buyer of our current home is signing papers tomorrow, we shall sign and close on the Midlo house on Monday morning. It LOOKS like we won't have to come to the table with anything for selling our house, praise God. We certainly aren't coming out ahead with it, but at least we aren't having to pour more money into it just to get it sold. Praise God if that does truly work out. They are supposed to give us final numbers tomorrow as to what our down payment will come out to be and all that. So we are in prayer that the number they give us will be within reason and we can make this happen. Ok, HE is totally making this happen, but you know what I mean. So, numbers tomorrow so we can prepare for all that. Then the owners of the Midlo house won't be out until next Thursday. So, we'll get some of Thursday and Friday until 11:59pm to be out of Grand Prairie. Crazy!!! I feel like we're pretty much ready to be out of here, though I there are some areas I haven't packed up yet... but now, I have a whole week to do it. I've been a frantic mess for the past few days thinking come Monday we'd be shoving our stuff in a truck, lol. So, there's good and bad to that. But, yes... still pressing on and praying hard!
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Monday, 10/21 Update: We officially signed next to every 'x' and have closed on both properties. Woo hoo!!! While we are official, we can't move into our new place until Thursday, when the sellers get out, and we have to be out of our current house by 11:59pm on Friday so the new buyers can take over. CRAZY! We are mostly packed but still have some work to do over the next few days. But, but the end of the week, we shall officially be residents of Midlothian, TX!
