It's no secret that Jen and I have been trying to decide our next route in the world of "where to live?" We hadn't bargained on being at my mom's house for the entire year we have been, but are grateful for it. I'm lucky I had notice to an upcoming lay off, since soooo many people don't get that luxury. I could avoid renewing a lease and worrying about how I was going to pay the rent I was paying and everything else.... thank goodness.
Well since my parents' house is now officially on the market, the "where to live" issue is even more important and the sense of urgency in finding a place has increased to say the least. Our plan this entire time was finding a place to rent and staying there a year and then buying so that we could stop freakin' moving.
Lil man really loves the school he is at, but if we look for a place that is in that school's district, it is going to make it a ridiculous distance once he hits middle school and high school... so we are trying to keep what he wants in mind, but at the same time we are the adults and have to do what's right for the family, not just the kid.
The thought of coming up with a security deposit and first months rent to get us into a place has been overwhelming me. My xanax intake has increased, but not to an everyday level (yet), lol... I'm trying to avoid that. The money I had in savings is nearly completely wiped out because of the additional time I spent unemployed (again, not planned, but how can you really plan that)... So I was going to be relying on Jen to come up with this money to get us out of my parents house and into a new "rental."
She has other obligations at the moment that were going to make that difficult. What to do what to do? I really want to buy a house, but with an unemployment gap and no money down that was pretty much out of the question. Late one night a couple of weeks ago I went to lendingtree.com just to see if someone would finance me anyway.
I felt much better about dumping money into my own house rather than paying out the ass to rent someone elses and not even be able to change it or fix it how I want it. Well they matched me with 5 lenders. I spoke with one and was preapproved almost immediately, which made me nervous as to how "over eager" this guy was. I researched his company and there were several complaints on ripoffreport.com and they are not endorsed by the better business bureau... so sure, you say I'm preapproved, but how much of my soul am I going to have to give up in the process of finding a home.
Another was honest and said he probably couldn't do it based off of mine, but maybe he could off of Jen's so he wanted her information. I didn't want to do it that way... I wanted the both of us to be on the loan, or at least me by myself, because I felt like I could get the better interest rate of the two of us...so I stopped dealing with him. I couldn't find a great deal of info on him because he was a broker who was going to be finding an investor for me.
The third took too long to even follow up with me so she to was out.
The fourth was promising, ranked by the BBB and not a lot of negative feedback and wouldn't promise anything he wasn't 100% sure of. The things he didn't know, he researched and got back to me on.
The fifth guy I had been talking to from the start and is a company that has an A+ with the BBB and is ranked the highest with Lendingtree and seems to have nothing but positive info and feedback available on it.... He's the one who came through. He preapproved me for a USDA loan, with the contingency that I can't close until I provide 30 days worth of pay stubs to prove my current income with my new job. (I got my first stub yesterday for a partial check, the first full check comes at the end of the month, so no problem.) I provided him with two years of employment history proof, paystubs from my last job, as well as unemployment benefit information... and yay...look at me, got preapproved.
The deal with a USDA loan is that it has to meet certain criteria because it is a federal loan as opposed to a FHA loan where you have to have 3% down and it's issued through a bank. A USDA loan requires that the property be purchased in a "rural" area that has an address that is "approved" by them... there's a website for that piece. You can't make over a certain amount of money, own any other property, or try and buy anything that has outbuildings on it, like a barn or workshop or something (has to be like a detached garage or carport if anything)
So now, I'm working with my aunt who is a realtor and also the one selling my parents house to try and find such property and make an offer. Wait up to 60 days to actually close on the house and then move in. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll find something that Jen also likes, lol, but is also something that is just down right fabulous that just screams Tommy (and maybe a hint of Jen, hahaha).
Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment