It's been quite some time since I've last written in this. A lot has changed since May!
In my last post I mentioned my heartbreak of not being able to construct due to the Bank and their appraiser (I'm still dumbfounded that a brand new house can be appraised at $50,000 less than what it would cost to build, but I digress). Anyways!
In May, after my heartbreak, Mike and his Dad came up with a plan B idea. It was to find a fixer upper and take out a 203K loan, which is a loan fit for first time home buyers looking for fixer uppers! It's the banks way of trying to move houses, especially to us nervous first time home buyers.
So we were told of a house that Mike's Brother-in-laws, dad's, girlfriends, mother owned. (Did you get all that?!). Anyways, the poor lady passed away a couple years ago and the house had been up on the market since then. So we took a look at it- but before we did we looked at the listing online and also gathered a list of other potential properties that we wanted to look at for our potential new plan to get back into trying to construct our dream home.
We went and took a look at the property... it was a time module from the 1970's. SO clean and everything was like new condition- just all from the 1970's! This was a one-owner home constructed just for her and her husband and nothing had been touched... I meant nothing. Mint green bathtubs and toilets along with carpet in the bathroom was just a start. Move on to the kitchen and you had mustard yellow countertops, appliances- including a washer and dryer in the kitchen, and a lovely vinyl flooring featuring a red brick pattern... yes it was hideous- but so well preserved! Every room from floor to ceiling had wood paneling to top it off! The one really beautiful thing about the house was that it has an automatic Jaffrey Stove... it's the coolest wood stove I've ever seen! I can talk more about that later though.
We saw the potential in the house and determined that of all the foreclosures in the area on top of this one, this had the most potential! Yes- it needed new floors in the kitchen and bathroom, new counter tops AND cabinets (the cabinets were ridiculous too) and new paint too! So we went through this wonderful thing called a bank process again. It wasn't nearly as horrible- in fact it was much easier than before- even with the appraisal. I dreaded the whole process, but this time, we were introduced to a wonderful woman at a new bank and she REALLY knew her stuff! She spent so much time with us... and I hope she knows how much it was appreciated. Her bank didn't hold mortgage loans, however, so there were a few things we had to go through that was ridiculous. We were once again guinea pigs in this new banks' loan because they had never done 203K loans with the bank we were going through... so yes, a little ridiculous- but not horrible. The sellers agreed to a much lesser cost than they were asking and we added $15,000 to the loan for all the upgrades.
We almost lost the loan when the bank took into account both our land loan (which was a hefty mortgage all in itself) plus the new mortgage plus whatever other debt to income ratio information they could find... we were $42 dollars over our debt to income ratio- $42!! I told them that my student loan I don't have to pay on until 2016 (because I've paid so much upfront that I don't have to worry about it till then) and then they let it pass... phew!
Anyways- we signed on the house on July 3rd, 2012 and all the work was done in 5 weeks which included a full kitchen remodel, bathroom remodel, and every room in the house remodel (just taking out the wood paneling and fixing the walls with mud and tape and painting).
We moved in on August 11th, 2012 and still had money to spare (when does that ever happen right).
On October 8th, we paid off our land loan (we padded for a month just so we could make sure we were all set). We had just enough! We took out a $38,000 3 year loan with 4.75% interest and started paying that loan on January 8th 2011. We've had to pay rent, insurance, and all those other monthly bills you can think of on top of it. In addition, we've paid for our driveway, septic design, and building permit (go figure never built!) AND spent hours on top of hours cutting, clearing, and burning the brush on our lot so that we could build a house. We not only paid off our loan 15 months early, but we also got through some very tight times (no real Christmases filled with presents the past few years!) Oh ya... did I mention we also got married, in which we also paid for that as well?! Fortunately, everyone knew we could use the money to help build our house so we came out even- perfect!
Now we have a house which is an investment and a piece of land. During this time last year, I was planning our wedding... I would've never guessed we would be where we are today. I love that we have a place to call our own- but I am still holding onto our dream.
"Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will still be among the stars."
