The House that Almost Wasn't

Where have I been, you ask? Why haven't I updated my blog since January, you ask? Well, there is a very good reason (this time).

We have been wanting to move for a long time, but suddenly it was getting serious. The economy and housing market are picking up. There are more houses to choose from, interest rates are still extremely low and prices are starting to rise. We needed to either find one soon or make a decision to stay in our current house.

Every day I was checking the new listings and every weekend I was going to open houses. One weekend in January my sister and niece came to visit for my birthday. They joined me in the house hunt as we looked at open houses and new model houses. When we ran out of those I told her about a house that looked really nice on the internet, but it was too far to commute everyday. We decided to go take a look anyway just for the fun of it. And that, my friends, is where the craziness started.

The neighborhood and the drive to get there was beautiful. It is called Rolling Hills Neighborhood for a reason. When we drove up to the house (because I instantly loved it) I just kept saying, "It's too far. I don't want to like it. It's too far." My sister looked through a window and immediately said, "Get Christie (my other sister/realtor) over here right now so you can make an offer." We hadn't even been inside yet, but it was already that nice. It was getting dark out and my poor sister/realtor was seriously sick with the flu, but she came to show us the house anyway. I couldn't help it. I fell in love. It had been completely remodeled with everything I would have wanted and more. There was even a peacock that came to welcome us to the neighborhood! I was ready to submit an offer on the spot.

We went back home, told hubby all about it and insisted he go see this beautiful house first thing in the morning. I emailed the lender and had him start the loan process. We made our offer. A couple days later we had an agreement and everything was rolling. We had a house inspection, roof inspection, pest inspection and chimney inspection. I got everything to the lender and we were hoping to close escrow on February 13th so that we would have our new house for Valentine's Day.

And then everything seemed to come to a screeching halt. The lender wasn't getting back to me in a timely manner and when he did he kept needing more things. Items he had at the beginning of the process he needed updated because it was taking so long. He also needed new things. Things he should have asked for at the very beginning. Crazy things like a copy of our driver's license or a letter saying why we wanted to buy a house. It seemed like every two days he needed two more items. Our simple 30 day escrow turned into a very stressful 52 day escrow. I didn't think it was ever going to happen. The seller had every right to put the house back on the market and we could lose it because of how incredibly slow and incompetent our lender was.

Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore the loan was finally completed and we were signing papers for our new house.

What a relief it was to finally be done with that part of it. Stay tuned for "The Big Move" and other happenings along the way.