Home in Thirty Days

We kissed off that short sale house we were waiting for due to safety concerns after that car went through the fence.  Then we were totally scrambling to find something else.  What we loved about our short sale house (pre crash) was how unique it was and how it wasn't just another track house like the one we live in now.  We searched and searched.  We looked at everything in our price range.  When I say everything.  I mean everything.  My husband and our realtor dragged Baby Posh Play and I (in 100 degree heat) through every ramshackle foreclosure in our budget and price range.

Then we found a little gem in a sea of houses that just weren't us.  A custom home built in 2004 that just got flipped with new paint and carpets.  This house sparkles from floor to ceiling with new hardwood (not laminate) flooring and a jetted tub in the master bathroom!  Can you say Mom time away from the boys!

The house was a foreclosure that some investors bought at auction.  A great deal only we put in our offer over a week ago and just finally heard back last night!  We got a counter offer to our offer and we signed it this morning!  Next step.  Appraisals and inspections.

I haven't been blogging this week because I was totally wallowing in self pity for days.  The thought of schleping me and Mr. Posh Play and Baby Posh Play to our parents houses or friends houses or who knows where until we got a house just wasn't the ideal situation.  Especially in the peak of summer heat.  One move with a baby is quite enough for this new Mom!

(Here are the barstools I am really hoping Mr. Posh Play agrees to let me buy.  Another piece of furniture for my Pottery Barn list).

When a Car and a Fence Meet

I have been writing about our new house we are waiting for short sale approval from the bank on.  We love this house.  It is such a cute house.  It is in the best neighborhood with the best school for Baby Posh Play and he could even walk there.  That is once he starts walking.

Last week our friends drove by the house and saw this.

How can we possibly buy this house knowing that a car could just come through the yard at any moment?  The car went all the way onto the back lawn!  If you are wondering why the yard looks so sad it is because the owners moved out over a year ago and turned the water off.  I was really excited about fixing the yard up and doing some landscaping.

It's official we are homeless as of August 15.  We are packing up our house today and we have absolutely nowhere to go.

Just Thinking

Today I am just thinking about.

-Why a car went through the back fence of the short sale house we are trying to buy.  Why it went over the retaining wall and onto the back yard grass.  Why the selling agent still hasn't told us and why my friends just happened to be driving by and noticed the damage.  Why I can't be one of those people who thinks it will never happen again.  Why I can't even look at the house anymore without wanting to cry. Why there is no way we can buy that house now.

-Why we made another offer on a different house over 24 hours ago and have heard nothing.  Why the selling agent of the new house is on a Disney cruise and I am sitting here.  Why if the Disney cruise has internet service he still hasn't gotten back to us.

-Why Baby Posh Play is growing up so fast.  Why he doesn't fit into newborn diapers anymore and I had to buy size 2 yesterday.  Why he insists on rolling around the house trying to get somewhere, anywhere other than where I put him.  Why he doesn't want to just sleep in my arms anymore like he used to.

-Why my husband's work still has a raise freeze and even though he is doing his new job he isn't getting paid for it and doesn't know when he will get his raise.  Why people don't understand that good employees need to be compensated for a job done right.

-Why it has to be so hot here that we sit inside all day during summer instead of enjoying the outdoors and why we can't find a house with a pool in our price range.  Why I am not floating in the pool that we can't find on a raft with a tall glass of ice cold juice.

-Why some weeks things seem like nothing goes the way you think it should only really it is working out the way it is supposed to you just don't see it that way yet.

Time to Bake

When my husband gets stressed out he bakes.  I think now that we are married he is rubbing off on me.  As I sit here today with Baby Posh Play we are waiting to hear back on an offer we made on a new house.  The short sale is taking too long and as it is we will be homeless next month so we just can't keep waiting.  We put in an offer today and in standard real estate timing for us the selling agent is on vacation.  This wouldn't be unusual for anyone else since it is summer only every offer we have put in so far has been delayed because the selling agents are on vacation.  Clearly I need to get my real estate license soon just so I can be on vacation on all the time.  So back to baking.  I decided to bake to get my mind off sitting here and waiting.  Especially since we are going on over a month of waiting and I have had it!

If you don't mind heating up your kitchen this week these muffins are totally worth it!

Kemp’s “You-Won’t-Believe-They’re-Whole-Wheat” Blueberry Muffins from Gourmet Magazine

For muffins

1 3/4 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 large egg

1/2 cup whole milk

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups blueberries (about 7 ounces)

For topping

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Equipment:

a muffin pan (preferably nonstick) with 12 (1/3- to 1/2-cup) muffin cups

Make muffin batter:

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle. Butter muffin pan.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl, then whisk in zest.

Whisk egg in another bowl, then whisk in milk and butter. Add to dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until just combined (batter will be dense). Fold in blueberries. Divide batter among muffin cups.
Make topping:

Stir together sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over batter in cups.

Bake until a wooden pick inserted into center of muffins comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then unmold onto a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Here We Are Still Waiting

I know I just spent the day yesterday complaining about waiting for our house so if you are tired of this endless diatribe then stop reading now.  You have been warned.

It has now been three weeks since we submitted our offer and two weeks since it was submitted to the bank for short sale approval.  We have not heard anything for a week.  Not a word.  I know people are complaining all over the internet about waiting months some even almost a year so why should I complain.  Here's why.  When we put in the offer the seller's agent told us it would only be two or three weeks at the most because the house had already been approved for short sale by the bank and we are offering the same amount so it should go right through.  So they wasted a week with getting the offer in to the bank so really the bank has only been looking at our offer for two weeks.  Still doesn't that seem like more than enough time to make a decision and to get this party started?

The bank is Bank of America so here is my open letter to them.

Dear Bank of America,

Unlike all the people out there who went and bought houses they couldn't afford.  Those people who got crazy loans without thinking it through.  All the people who almost forced you to close your doors and sink our economy into one of the worst economic downturns we have ever seen.  We are not those people.  We chose to wait.  We saved our money.  We lived as financially responsibly as we could.  We didn't buy.  We waited.  We knew we couldn't afford a house so we tried to do the right thing.  We lived in weird apartments and with weird landlords and unusable yards and old appliances that barely work.  We currently live with a dryer than puts rust stains on all our clothes, with moldy bathrooms and dirty carpets.

Now we are married and have saved up more than enough for a down payment.  We are ready to buy our first home together.  My husband has banked with you for almost 34 years.  He never bounced a check.  He never made any financial missteps.  He is pretty much your perfect customer.

Enough about us.  One of your home loan customers bought a house through you and stop paying their mortgage almost two years ago.  They left the house.  Turned off the water and power.  Let all the plants wither away.  They ripped out all the fixtures.  Ripped out lighting.  Ripped off cupboard doors.

Now you have been stuck with this house for almost two years.  Your customers haven't made payments.  You aren't making any interest on their loan payments.  You are close to owning a house that is becomming less valuable with every day that passes since it is falling into worse disrepair.  The auction is next month so you will own this house and have to pay to market it and lose even more money.  If you are worried about displacing the family of cockroaches who has taken up residence in the home we do regret to admit we will have to move them elsewhere.

You have an offer from a long time customer who is financially responsible and wants to take this house and pay you full market price for it too.

Can I ask what the holdup is?  If it were me I would be throwing the keys at us and running the other way.  Instead you choose to ignore us and basically act like we aren't even here.  If that is how you repay longtime customers then I am not sure I want to do business with you.

We really like your house and would like to buy it.  Can you at least give us a response so we can move on with it already?

Sincerely,
Posh Play and Family

(This cute backyard is courtesy of Pottery Barn).

The House Waiting Game Continues Day 20

It's now day twenty.  No word from the selling agent on our house.  We submitted our offer and it took the slowpokes almost a week to get the offer approved and submitted to the bank.  Then it took the bank a week to respond and say the offer was received.  Now we have waited almost a week for the bank.  Short sales.  Worth the wait?  We'll have to see how this all goes before I can answer that question.  The selling agent told our realtor it could take the bank weeks to respond.  We have to know something by July 1 because we have to be out of our current rental house by August 15 and we need a little overlap to get the new house move in ready.  Hey no worries people we are just here.  Waiting.  No rush or anything.

While I wait I continue to pretend to decorate this and our future houses.  I have to fill my hours of waiting with something productive.  I could just burrow down in this fabulousness for hours with a good magazine and my baby.  Don't worry Pottery Barn someday I might own a house I can actually decorate like this.

Our First House

If you have been following our recent house search the last time I posted we had our hearts set on this lovely house with our own pool!  That house wasn't meant for us and after many tears and some depression filled days we might have found something we like even more!

We went with our realtor to the town we are moving to last week one evening after my husband got off work.  Imagine a Land Rover with the baby in the back with me and my husband up front with our realtor in rush hour traffic.  Not the best time of day to take a baby house searching only with our schedule we have to make it work when we can!

We looked at a house with a pool in the back in the country and I decided living next to neighbors with a cow skull in their front yard as a lawn ornament was just too far of a stretch even for a girl who likes to crank up the country tunes on the radio sometimes.  Then we looked at the house that we used to think was the house of our dreams and we both decided after looking at it again we were dazzled by the house the first time and it just wasn't doing it for us.  Which is a good thing since our loan never would have gone through with the wood shingle roof in shambles and a half completed master bathroom.  I started to get really sad.  I even thought I might throw up.  Where would we live?  I looked at our baby and my husband and imagined us moving into one of those exective apartments you pay month to month or a hotel payable by the week.  I couldn't handle it.  Not with all the changes of having a new baby and packing and moving and repacking and moving again.

Our realtor said he had one more house for us.  It was on a busy road and I tried really hard to nix it.  My husband wouldn't budge.  He wanted to see it.  I agreed mostly after being so defeated by the house search which has been going on for weeks.  I couldn't even look out the window and then the car stopped so I lifted my head and there it was.  The most adorable house I have seen during our house hunt so far!  I jumped outside and ran around and got the baby out of the car and hurried up these quaint little brick and concrete stairs onto the sweetest little patio which looked out over rolling hillsides and beautiful estates.  Here in this million dollar neighborhood one little house just our size sits on the corner.  I couldn't wait to go in and I shuffled my feet nervously until the door was opened.  Once we finally stepped inside I couldn't believe it.  PLANTATION SHUTTERS throughout the house and beautiful wood floors.  So they are really laminate only who is really going to snub their nose at that when the house is so completely great in almost every way.  A formal living room, dining room and then a casual family room with a kitchen and even room for a table.  An office for my husband and three bedrooms and two bathrooms.  The master bathroom is hilarious and black and white tile only totally fixable in the long run.  There are weird little things about the house like the most dizzying shades of paint.  Yellow family room with a red entertainment nook.  Really?  Only again totally something we can redo.  The house was the sad punching bag in a bitter divorce so someone ripped out the guest bathroom sink fixture and the heating unit off the wall.  Now that's what I call a fight!  The yard has been left without water for over a year so the landscaping is sad only easily replaced once the water gets turned back on.  The back yard even has a play set ready playing.

I couldn't hold back any longer.  I wanted to sing and dance and clap my hands loudly for everyone to hear.  Our house!  A house that our little baby boy can learn to walk in and sit in his high chair for the first time.  A place where a wreath would look just beatiful on the front door around the holidays and a tree can be placed with all white lights right in the front window for all the neighbors to enjoy.  As we drove away I yelled happily.

It's not even a freaking short sale!

Why did I say it?  Why?  It turns out the house is a short sale and with our recent history with another short sale who knows how it will go.  All I know is this house is made for us.  It has to be our home.  I hope it is our home.