Well, I had originally intended on not opening until April 1st, 2009– however boredom has gotten the best of me and so here I sit to write about the past few weeks which have been a little bit crazy, adventuresome, and shocking. Things which I never thought would come to be, have, and things I never thought would happen, happened– but wait I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the very beginning…

In my post prior to the last (we will get to the previous post ), you were all informed that Robby and I were in the midst of trying to find a home to buy. I was pretty down about the whole experience, being as we didn’t exactly qualify for much and I honestly felt like the search was really quite fruitless. However, our Realtor (bless his heart) refused to give up and would continue to drag us out every weekend to look at house after house. After another disappointing Sunday afternoon, as we were headed home, he calls us again to tell us that he wants us to look at a home out in Maricopa (about 35 miles out) that he thinks we will actually qualify for. I was exhausted, but I thought, what the hell why not? So Robby stops to pick up some food, we stop at the house to take a look at the pictures online to see if we’ll actually like it– and while I’m not very impressed with the pictures I figure we should go down anyway. So we drive down and meet with our Realtor, who shows us around the community, while we wait for the sales associate to show up.

Finally after 45 minutes, she calls him to say she’s made it down, and we pull up to the model and walk inside. I walk in and instantly fall in love. It is very spacious and although the kitchen is cornered off it is still very spacious that it doesn’t bother me as much. So we walk upstairs and are astounded at the size of the bonus room (loft) and even more blown away by the rest of the rooms in the house. At the point Robby asks to see the actual home, so we head over there and we love it just as much without the furniture. After a consensus between Robby and I that we love the house we head over to the office and fill out the necessary paperwork. Kristie the sales rep tells us that she will call us the following morning to let us know if the pre-qual was approved and being as we had failed to qualify for any other of the houses, I didn’t expect that we would hear good news.

The following day, while I’m working, my phone buzzes and tells me I have a voicemail. I look to see who’s call I have missed and notice that it is our Realtor’s, so I immediately think the worse. I press the voicemail key, enter my password and then listen to his voicemail. I was so surprised to hear him say that we had been approved. My jaw near dropped. I immediately called Robby to tell him the news, as I was still processing it. Kristie advised us that she was going to need a $1,000 cashier’s check to write the contract, so after we got off work at 4, with directions from her as to where to go for a Washington Mutual, we pull up only to find that it has been converted to a Chase. Frustrated, using the GPS in the Jeep we locate the nearest Washington Mutual and drive the 3 some miles to get there. Turns out that WaMu has been shut down. Nearly ready to tear our hair out, we look for the next closest WaMu, this time calling to ensure it is in fact a Washington Mutual and arrive there 30 mins prior to their closing. Finally armed with our cashier’s check we head over to the builder’s office and sign on the contract.

Kristie tells us that the loan officer from the mortgage lender they will be working with will need our past 2 months of bank statements, a copy of our taxes from this year and last, W-2s from the past two years, and our last 2 months of pay stub. She advised us that the loan processor would contact us the following day to let us know all that we needed, but we figured might as well get things sped along and go home and e-mail all the required documents. Robby hears back from her the following down and she advises him of the additional information she’ll need (very minor stuff) and he does his diligence in getting it to her ASAP. She then advised him that she would contact him to let him know if the loan was approved or not. The following day we hear back from her and she says that the loan has been approved, pending his signing and faxing of some documents which he does before he leaves work. She also informed him that if there were any hiccups which she didn’t think there would be, then we would hear back about it the next day or the day after. 2 days pass and we haven’t heard anything– so we are in the clear!

A few weeks go by and the loan processor informs Robby that they just need a few things signed and faxed before she can send the paperwork off to title. After we do that we get a call a few days later from our Escrow Officer, and she gives us all the calculations and what will be required upon the signing of the title. Now originally we had thought that we would have to pay at least $4500, even with the $1,000 earnest money, but turns out her calculations came out to $3,196 for a down payment. We are absolutely ecstatic as we had expected to pay a lot more then that. She doesn’t believe anything in the amounts will change, but we are keeping the extra thousand until we actually close, which will be next Friday!

Things have been a bit chaotic due to the fact, however I am extremely excited. It will be so nice to have a home that is ours that I can paint and hang up decorations without fear that I will lose out on my deposit if I do. Next Friday will probably be the next happiest day of my life and I cannot wait for it to arrive. We got a really good deal on the house, as it was $128,990 with an interest rate of 2.5% for the first year, 3.5% for the second, and then locks into 4.5% for the 3rd year, onward. Below you will find the images of the model home– truly it is absolutely breathtaking!

In the midst of all this an ex-friend who I had assumed I would never speak to again, suddenly reappeared in my life and we are talking again. I have a lot of people in my life who disprove of the situation, but there are some who support me and my decisions. For those people I thank because this is not easy and while that may appear to be the case– it is not. I realize exactly what I am getting into, I have thought about it, and while she hurt me, people make mistakes all the time. I had to decide if I would regret walking away without at least trying to reconciliation and upon a lot of thought and self reflection, my answer was yes. It’s been nearly 3 years– I know I have changed a lot during those years, so who is to say she hasn’t either. In the words of one of my very good friends, Nat, “Tread lightly.” And I am.

Current Mood:  ecstatic