Home is where your Story Begins

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS NO PICTURES. IT'S MORE FOR JOURNALING PURPOSES ON THE EXPERIENCE WE WENT THROUGH TO GET OUR HOME.

As in my previous post I said I would tell you the story on how getting this home or should I say a home has been probablly the most stressful thing I have been through yet in my life. Let's go back in time where this journey all started.

We first started looking for homes back when we were living with Austin's grandparents before Jhett was. At the time the market was just starting to fall and we knew Queen Creek would be the place where we could find a nice home that we could afford. We had a couple of friends who had bought homes and we started looking in their neighborhoods. We walked through a model in our friends Derek & Lyndsay's neighborhood and just loved the layout. After talking with the sales lady she said they had a Spec home in that model that someone had just backed out of. We took the information and left. As we were driving I was looking over the options that had been selected and loved all of them. I kept feeling like we needed to call the lady and tell her we were interested. Austin felt the same. We knelt down to pray and just as we finished our phone rang and it was Derek saying that they were at the model and the lady was telling them that someone else was on their way down to look at the spec but since Derek and Lyndsay were there they would count them as us and wait for us to head on down with a $500 deposit check. At the time we felt they were our answer to our prayer. So we got down there gave them a check and started on paperwork. We were so excited we qualified and were finally getting a home. The house had not started to be built yet so we experienced the process of watching a home being built. It was all so exciting and I was just pregnant and could not wait to start our lives in that home. As time went on the market started dropping and the price of our home dropped $20,000! We were told that if the price dropped while our home was being built we would get the lower price. That was one of the main reason we felt good about signing on this home. So we went to office and they told us we didn't qualify for the lower price. Blah Blah BLah! We were angry and immediately started looking for another home in that area because we both felt like that was where we were supposed to be. We did find an even bigger home for alot less that was a spec as well but was move in ready. So we prayed alot about that one and figured we could afford it and still felt pretty good so we set up a time to sign. Well the morning of signing came and we walked in, had another $500 check and sat down. I was the first to sign my name and then Austin just sat there looking at the paper. Would go to sign and then stopped. I was sitting there thinking "Um exuse me, sign your name!" and before I knew what was going on Austin put the pen down and said out loud. "I can't do this" and we walked out with our money. I immediately burst into tears and was yelling at Austin as we drove to the first house we signed on and Austin walked in there and backed out of that house as well. Here I was completely distraught, pregnant and homeless. You see the rule at Grandma & Grandpas is NO PETS & NO BABIES. I got and the phone and called my mom and she proceeded to tell me that one of her friends was looking to rent out their house in their neighborhood. This friend was excited to rent her home to us and even gave us a great deal. What a blessing that house turned out to be in so many ways. It turns out that we would have NEVER been able to afford either one of those homes we wanted. The economy took a turn for the worse and work slowed way down at Austin's dads and UPS and there was a big rumor of layoffs and we had no idea if Austin would be saved or not. So we packed up and moved in with my parents. Ok, now that is the history of our home finding. Pretty intense. Well living with my parents we knew wouldn't last forever and nor did we want it too. We all need our own space. So April was when we started our hunt again. We decided to look at Foreclosures & Short Sales. We debated where we should look and both decided Queen Creek. We went through so many homes. It was amazing to me how beat up some of them were. We put offers on many but they were all Short Sales. Finally a week before Mexico back in June we found the house we are in now and walked through it the day it came on the market and immediately put an offer in. It wasn't until we were in Mexico we found out our offer was excepted. We were sooooo excited! OK now the story gets complicated, but why wouldn't it? When do things ever run smoothly? Since Austin and I were first time home buyers we qualified for a USDA Rural Housing Loan. This is still a fixed loan but it is government based and they had all sorts of crazy requirements in order for the house to close. So anyways as soon as we were told to do something we did it promptly. Well one of the requirements was the upstairs AC needed to be fixed and the part that was broken was on back order so that put a delay on things. Also there were metal baracades over all the doors and windows and those needed to be removed in order to have inspections and what nots. Well long story short, we were coming up on our 30 day mark and the seller took forever to get the baracades down and to fix the window that was broken in order to do our things and they were trying to sell the house from underneath us. Being through all that we have been through with homes Austin and I were not about to let another person screw us over. So we got an attorney involved. Thank goodness he is family because otherwise we would have had no choice. So we went to court and had legitament proof that over the course of the 30 days we had to close the bank who owned the property had taken 14 days to do their part before we could even start on ours and basically they were trying to break contract illegally so we had a restraining order put on the house that could not go away unless we were made happy.... Either we got the house or we got a lot of money. After a 2 week battle we ended up getting the house. We signed paperwork on August 20th and that night began the remodeling. We moved in about 5 weeks later and our still in the process of settling in.

So that's our story. Long I know. But like I said its for journaling purposes.

PICTURES COMING SOON!