House Post

I wanted to document our house buying process. We have been looking at houses since April 2012. We were seriously considering a house and put an offer on it in May of last year. It fell through and we were super bummed. What a huge blessing that was! In the fall of last year we started looking super seriously again. We got pre-approved and we were ready. We would check the website at least once a day... usually more. We walked through countless houses and none of them gave us a good feeling. We were really hoping to stay in our current ward boundaries.  However, I don't think that was part of the plan. We were feeling pretty discouraged in February when our lease was up. We decided to go ahead and do a month to month hoping that something would come along and it did!! In March, Tyler's mom saw on Facebook that someone they knew got a job offer and would be moving. This was on a Saturday. Tyler called them to see if we could come look at their house. They told us they would like to wait until Friday to do some things first. Monday came and they called us saying they had a few people interested and would we like to see it that night. We had already set up an appointment to see another house and decided to see the Pratt's house right after. We walked through the Pratt's house and I fell in love. It felt like home. The backyard was perfect, it had a living and family room, and 4 bedrooms. After we got in the car I looked at Tyler and he couldn't stop smiling. I asked him what he thought. He told me he didn't like it... Very funny!!! NOT! I said "you're lying". I told him I loved it and we should buy it. Many people don't know this, but we are both super afraid to commit. This was a huge decision! The biggest we've ever made and it was scary. We went to Tyler's parents afterward to get Addy and told them how much we loved the house. It was well within our budget. We decided that we would think about it for a few days and then let the Pratts know. We told Tyler's parents this and they told us we shouldn't wait if we were serious about it. So... The same night we looked it at we put an offer in. We called the Pratts and offered them full asking price with a small carpet allowance. He said he would discuss it with his wife and let us know. Longest half hour ever!!! He called back and said they accepted and he would call the others that had looked at it and tell them they had accepted an offer. At this point, Tyler and I got even more nervous, mostly Tyler. :) Had we made the right decision? What now? 

We called the bank and our pre approval had expired. I guess they only last for 90 days.  We talked to our bank and she said she didn't think we could get a loan at this point. What??!! Since Tyler basically works from commission he isn't guaranteed a salary, which makes banks nervous. We were feeling a bit defeated. Tyler's parents had recently used Key Bank and gave us a contact there. We called and he said they have a special type of loan called "doctors and dentists loan", however, it required 10% down instead of 3.5%. That's a huge difference. Luckily, by the time closing came around we had enough. 

There was another bump in the road when the appraisal came back pretty low. We felt bad for the Pratts, but there was no way the bank would lend us more than the appraised value and we didn't want to pay more than that value. After a couple days of going back and forth, the Pratts agreed to come down to that price. On May 10th we closed!! It seemed way to easy.  

Now we are just super anxious to get into our house. The Pratts are basically renting from us until June 8th when we will live in our house. It can't come soon enough! 

I feel super blessed that everything worked out the way that it did. We will be able to stay in this house for a long time, at least until Tyler's students loans are paid off and hopefully longer.