Housing Hiccups

Well, this post has been a long time coming. Last time I wrote about our housing situation, we were just about to close on our beautiful 1885 Victorian. So much has changed since then that I'll just have to start from there.

So if you remember,  we had put an offer on this beautiful abode: 

We had ordered the home inspection and from there, decided to go through with the house. The major concerns that were raised was with the heating system, an old, unknown furnace that looked as if it had never been serviced. Everything else (the slightly sloping floors, some of the dry rot on the exterior, the electric system, etc) could be dealt with at a later date, said the inspector. 

When it came time do doing the appraisal though, it was an entirely different story. What he found painted a rather grim picture. I have found this Home Condition Rating Scale to depict a little better what I am talking about. 

C1	The improvements have been very recently constructed and have not previously been occupied. The entire structure and all components are new.
C2	The improvements feature no deferred maintenance, little or no physical depreciation, and require no repairs. Virtually all building components are new or have been recently repaired, refinished or rehabilitated. All outdated components and finishes have been updated and/or replaced with components that meet current standards. Dwellings in this category either are almost new or have been recently renovated and are similar in condition to new construction.
C3	The improvements are well maintained and feature limited physical depreciation due to normal wear and tear. Some components, but not every major building component, may be updated or recently rehabilitated. The structure has been well maintained.
C4	The improvements feature some minor deferred maintenance and physical deterioration due to normal wear and tear. The dwelling has been adequately maintained and requires only minimal repairs to building components/mechanical systems and cosmetic repairs. All major building components have been adequately maintained and are functionally adequate.
C5	The improvements feature obvious deferred maintenance and are in need of some significant repairs. Some building components need repairs, rehabilitation or updating. The functional utility and overall livability is somewhat diminished due to condition, but the dwelling remains usable and functional as a residence.
C6	The improvements have substantial damage or deferred maintenance with deficiencies or defects that are severe enough to affect the safety, soundness or structural integrity of the improvements. The improvements are in need of substantial repairs and rehabilitation, including many or most major components.

With a USDA loan, a home is required to at least meet a  C3 or above, and our dream home came in between a C4 and C5 rating. Also with a USDA loan, the house must be a single family dwelling and because of the illegal basement rental, we no longer would qualify for the Rural Housing Loan. At this point, we were a little crushed, but we had come to expect this. The weekend prior to finding out the results of the appraisal, my dad had come down to help me pack and move some things as well as take a look at the house. While we were there, he basically told me to run, not walk away from the house. Without even entering the home, he had some MAJOR red flags. I took a picture of one thing we found while doing the walk around:

To give this picture some context, I'll tell you what exactly happened. My dad and I had just finished our second full walk around of the house, and we saw some grass growing out of the side of the house, like in the middle of a board. So I pulled on the grass. This is what happened. That is rot, and there were bugs. This is the weathered side of the house. Disaster. 

So needless to say, we weren't all that bummed when the house fell through. Seeing this, I knew this house was beyond our abilities and out of our budget. I only wish we had figured this out sooner so we wouldn't be out about $1000.00 for the home inspection and appraisal. Live and learn right?

During this learning process, our landlord had been told that we were looking into buying a home (bad Ryan). His reaction was to put our house on the rental market right away without us having given our last month's notice. Nice, huh? So at this point, we were given a deadline of moving out of our house by August 1st, with no prospects in sight. We started hounding the MLS website again, finding four new properties to check out. We also increased the amount of money we were willing to spend from $160,000 to $200,000. We both just recently got raises (!!!) and we wanted to see what we could find at a higher price point. 

So we set out about two Saturdays ago with open minds and big ideas. The first three homes were subpar, then we hit the jackpot. Literally we walked in the door of this house and just knew. This was the home for us. 

She's so lush and gorgeous and quirky and charming. We knew we had to have her. Everything about her just kept saying yes. From the little Hobbit doors:

To the fabulous door ornaments: 

And the amazing hardwoods throughout: 

We were giddy with the prospect of this house. It has beautiful bay views, wonderful upgrades and so much potential for expansion (unfinished basement). Also, we did the walk through with the owner since he was in between real estate agents at the time, so we got all of the insight and history about the house. The man who had previously owned it was married to a woman who loved anything and everything Disney, so the house was modeled after something that would be out of an old Disney movie (I think it was Sleeping Beauty- my favorite!). There was so much love for Disney that on the bathroom floor on the main level, there is a Mickey head etched into one of the black tiles! So amazing. 

Since we did the walk around with the owner, he had a chance to pull our real estate agent aside and communicate to her that he really like us and was flexible on the price. This was awesome to hear since this house was at the very top of our budget. So Ryan and I went home and thought about it over night and we just couldn't stop thinking about all of the possibilities, the feel of the space and how lovely it was. We knew we had to put in an offer. 

We decided to start low (since the guy paid 130k for it just one year ago) and put in an offer of $180,000, with seller paying all closing costs. This did not go over well friends. I think the fellow might need to look up the definition of "flexible" because his counter offer to us was that we pay the full asking price of $199,000 and he would pay closing costs. Whomp. Since we really wanted this house, we weren't going to just let it drop after one failed bargaining attempt. We're pretty persistent. We decided to offer $190,000 with him paying all closing costs. He countered with the same offer as before then stated that he wanted to wait two weeks on our offer of $190,000 to market it more with a new real estate agent before he accepted our offer, basically he's saying he would only accept a full price offer. 

WHAT THE F*CK!!!

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Ryan and I were mild to severely offended. After some serious heart searching (getting our egos in check, checking our motives, checking our values) and talking to friends and family, we decided to drop the offer for now. Ryan's stepfather Dan said to me, "Erin, what house do you know of in this economy, in that town that has appreciated $60,000 in value in one years' time?" None is the answer. That's unheard of anywhere, let alone Astoria, OR. I'm still pissed the way everything shook out, I feel as if the guy tried to bait and switch us, say he was flexible to make us fall in love, then only accept full price (which we did seriously consider offering for about a two hour block of time). I can only speak for myself but it's left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. But something I've learned through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that everything happens for a reason. 

So for those of you who are still reading up to this point, you'll see that we're about a week away from being homeless with nothing on the horizon. Panic has set in at this point. I had a couple of sleepless nights. One of those nights I happened to be up at about 3:30 AM browsing around Craigslist. That's when I saw IT. By "it" I mean an 800 sq. ft. bungalow with one bedroom, office, wood floors, washer, dryer, dishwasher, two car parking and bay views. Done. Sold. Give it to me. I almost woke Ryan up to show him the place at that ungodly time of night. I waited though, and told him first thing in the morning. 

We had an appointment to look at it less than two hours later, and within two days, we had a key. It was such a whirlwind experience that I've had a hard time communicating to anyone about it. Today is the first time I've been able to take a deep breath (but not a full once since we still have a lot of cleaning left to do at the old rental). We moved everything in one day, my body feels like that of a 104 year old woman. It was such a surreal experience sleeping in a brand new place last night, I definitely haven't had time to process it all. 

I'm not sure what I can say this experience has taught me, but it was an interesting one none the less. Thankfully the place we have moved to has a month to month lease, still giving us the option to look at buying if we want to. We've talked about seeing if the Hobbit house sits on the market for a while, resubmitting an offer to see if cooler heads have prevailed, but who knows at this point. We're just thankful to have our kitties in one place with a roof over our head. 

And don't worry, pictures of the new place are coming soon!!!

Counter Conclusions

Last I left off with the house situation, Ryan and I were about to do a second walk through of the wonderful 1800's Victorian, and were thinking of putting in an offer. Since, we actually have put in an offer and have verbally accepted a counter with plans to sign the paperwork on Monday! I'll go over what we've been through up to this point:

5/27/2013: Upon meeting our realtor at the house to do a second walk through with Ryan's dad, we found out the house in a short sale. At first, this turned my stomach. I didn't really know what this meant and from anything I had heard previously, it was going to be a bad deal. Thankfully with the help of our realtor (who is experienced in short sales), we were able to come to terms with this and move forward. The definition of a "short sale" is a property whose debts outweigh it's worth. Basically, our seller bought the house in 2006 for $237,000 and it's now worth a lot less and the seller cannot afford to repay the loan he has on the house. The bank has accepted the house back at $135,000 from the seller, and thus, we get the asking price of $139,900.

5/30/2013: After a few days of talking, Ryan and I decided we were ready to put in an offer. To limit the amount of money we would pay out of pocket, we decided to offer full price for the house with the bank paying closing costs (about $6500). Ryan and I both agreed that we didn't want to go into homeownership penny less, so the least we could pay up front, the better. It was a lonnnnnnng few days before we heard anything.

My view from signing day.

6/2/2013: Ryan and I were feeling good about our offer. To be honest, we kind of thought we would at least hear back from the seller by Friday, but there was no word. I'm not sure how most short sales work, but with ours, the seller and the bank had to approve our offer before we could move forward. We went into the weekend anxiously awaiting word, only to hear nothing until Sunday evening. We ran into our realtor at a going away party for a friend and she told us there might be another offer on the house- GASP!!! At this point in my head, I basically said "screw it" because there is no way Ryan and I could get into a bidding war for this house. The panic set in and we were both kind of a mess. We started assessing other options, I was hounding Craigslist for new apartments like it was my job, and we were both pretty unhappy at this point.

6/3/2013: We found out the offer we had been so worried about was a low ball offer, one that was almost laughable and that our offer was being sent to the bank for approval. At this point, the seller still hasn't approved our offer, I'll be interested to hear what his hold up is. We did put a clause in our offer that said he needed to get the HUGE old, rotting hot tube off the deck before we would move in, I'm curious to know if that's deterring him.

6/5/2013: The bank countered our offer, giving us 48 hours to respond. This is where Ryan gets really annoyed and resentful towards the offer/house. What the bank countered with is that they would "pay closing costs" with the sale price of the house being $6500 more than we offered. Now, I get kind of confused, maybe I'll have Ryan come do an update to try to explain what happened. So basically, they raised the price of the asking price so that our closing costs were wrapped up into our loan. So now instead of paying $139,900 and $1,000 out of pocket, we're going to pay $143,000 with $3,000 out of pocket. This set us back a little. We had to really think on this. I'm a penny pincher by nature and being like $2,000 from me+Ryan and the street scares the shit out of me. About $2,000 is what we would be left with in savings after doing this transaction. This is where again I started looking at Craigslist and inquiring about different places. The apartment that we've been wanting for the last couple of years now came back online and we had thrown around the idea of moving in there to save money and lower costs. At one point, both Ryan and I had agreed we weren't going to do the house deal because a) we were scared, b) we were pissed at the bank and c) we couldn't afford it.

But then something happened. We both went to bed Thursday night, 24 hours left to decide to counter, walk away or accept, and our whole outlook changed. When I came out of the shower yesterday morning, I was convinced getting the house was in our best interest, knowing that we could make it work, then I saw this quote:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" -Anais Nin

That solidified it for me. I told Ryan how I was feeling and he said he felt the same!! So last night, as of 5:00 PM, we have a verbal mutual acceptance of the counter!

What This Means Now:

Come Monday when we actually sign the acceptance papers, we have 10 business days to do an inspection on the house. We have been given a few names in the area and we are going to have a contractor friend come down to do the walk through with us as well. We want to know what we are looking at. After the inspection, we've reached the point of no return I think. Our realtor says we're at least 30-45 days from closing, so we'll be giving notice to our landlord that next month will be our last living in our little bungalow, and then we will be homeowners.... SCARY!!! I often ponder aloud, when the hell did I become an adult?? It's scary shit.

Ryan and I have been cooking up many plans in our heads as far as changes we're going to make, updates to be done and so many other things. In another post I want to break down the financial piece of the house, detailing how we can afford a house this large, what our monthly costs are going to look like and how I'm working to save us so money at the same time. This is an exciting time and I hope to share all of our experiences along the way, so stay tuned!!!

A Week in Photo: Weeks 20-23

It's been a while for some photos. I think being so busy and having my mind be consumed by this whole house buying thing has put me in a strange state. I've been slowly compiling pictures over the past few weeks so here's what we've been up to!!

Saturday, May 18th: There are few books that I would spend my precious sleeping hours on. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is one of those books though. Marley and I stayed up late into the night trying to power through this high adrenaline quest! 

Monday, May 20th: Months and months ago, Ryan's mother gifted us this wonderful espresso maker... And we haven't used it once. It works perfectly and there's even a milk steamer! I finally gave in to using it when I was in a major caffeine withdrawal. Every morning now Ryan and I have been drinking espresso shots and saving money not going to our beloved coffee stand on the way to work. Buying a house changes your life folks.

Wednesday, May 22nd: I have been on a huge oatmeal kick lately. Usually I bring my own from home, but on this day, our head chef Vinessa made oatmeal bar!!! It literally was the best day of my life. Fresh strawberries, cranberries and dried coconut topped this bowl of joy, my mouth was happy for hours!

Saturday, May 25th: The Astoria Alano Club is a special place for me. The best way I can describe it is like going to church. For me is a sacred room where I can go and fully be myself without judgement or fear. With its stained yellow shag carpet and Goodwill couches, I can't help but to keep coming back. After 650 days of sobriety, this place still gets me.

Saturday, May 25th: After Ryan and I got our bank approval, we decided to start looking for houses. We sat down over indian food and talked about what our future home must have in order for us to consider putting an offer in. Typical to my first-born-perfectionist-listmaking-self, I made a check off sheet for every house we visited. This was a tip I picked up from the interwebs, because apparently if you see enough homes, they all start to blend together. I took detailed notes, and started crossing houses off the list as we went.

Sunday, May 26th: As I've said before, Sunday's are my days with Ryan. I think it's important as a hard working couple to take at least one day of the weekend (and a couple during the week) where you devote to your mate. We have busy free time schedules so some days it seems like we don't even see each other even though we work at the same place! Sunday's are also Ryan's day to sleep in, so I was able to snap this picture of him and our boy snuggling up for the perfect lazy Sunday day.

Thursday, May 30th: After we went on our house hunting expedition, we found the perfect house (well, it hit the most of our boxes and it was really inspirational). We hemmed and hawed for a few days until we couldn't stand it anymore, so we put in an offer. Our realtor was really great about explaining the huge packet we had to sign, and we felt good about the offer we were submitting. Only once durning the whole process did I have a moment where the voice in my head said, "oh f*ck, oh f*ck, oh f*ck. ABORT!!!" 

Friday, May 31st: This is a warning to all indoor cat owners who leave their kitties with little to no food over a 10 hour period. You will have a kitty tornado on your hands. We came home to this scene, cat food bags littered about the floor, mail strewn everywhere and mayhem ensuing. 

Tuesday, June 4th: The hipster scene has moved to Astoria. Evidence of this is seen outside of my favorite eatery, the Astoria Coffee House. Tuesday nights after my women's meeting, a big group of ladies go out to dinner and the coffee house is usually the spot. The trees obviously need to be wrapped in sweaters to be able to bare the crappy year round weather we endure, and they look so pretty while doing it!

Thursday, June 6th: Today marks the first day of the Goonies Celebration! This year is the 25th anniversary of this life changing movie, and people will be flooding the town to celebrate!! They are trying to get together enough people tonight to do the worlds largest Truffle Shuffle, there will be tours of the Goonies house on Sunday and an 80's music dance off tomorrow evening. Goonies never say die! I know what I'll be watching this weekend!!!

Let the House Hunting Begin!

I did something crazy the other day. After finding out we got approved for a $160,000 loan, I applied for House Hunters on HGTV. Ryan and I are amongst the swooning masses who stop everything to watch that show. When there are House Hunters/ House Hunters International marathons on TV? Good night. We can be found sitting on the couch for HOURS glued to the TV, making a game out of which house the couple is going to pick. Thank god we don't actually have cable of our own, otherwise  we'd never get anything done. I don't think anything will come of this, but I thought it was something interesting to note!

So, you're probably wondering what's happened up to this point in our first time home buyers experience! Last Wednesday, we finally heard back from the bank that we had been approved for an FHA loan totaling $160,000. Our next step after that was to schedule an appointment with a mortgage broker to see if there were any other loans we could apply for. One of the things we've been hearing over and over is that we should shop around our mortgage as much as the house we purchase. We met with a lady (Alyce) that everyone had been recommending to us, and let me tell you, that experience made me feel so much better about the whole buying process. When we got our pre-approval letter back from Wauna, they quoted us about $11,000 out of pocket that included the 3% down and closing costs. That scared the hell out of me because that would be every penny we had to our name. I was starting to have second thoughts about us being ready to buy. I was thinking maybe we needed to wait a year and save as much as we could to have a greater down payment and to work on getting Ryan's credit up to qualify for a Conventional loan. Fortunately though, we were presented with some other options. Apparently, when you're applying for a loan, most times your median credit score is used, meaning that Ryan's 642 put us over the required number for a USDA loan. After crunching some numbers, Alyce was able to estimate that on a $139k house, we would be out of pocket only $900 with monthly payments of about $950 (assuming we can put in a full price offer on a house and ask for all closing costs to be covered). Boom. Totally do-able. We need to go in this week to turn in our W-2s, tax returns, pay stubs and letters of good standing to start the process of being approved for the new loan.

What we were able to do from that point is start looking for a realtor to start looking at houses! We had many friends recommend realtors that they know or have used. My parents have been lucky enough to have the same realtor through all of their home purchases, and even can consider them as friends. I know that I've heard people interview realtors, but for us, word of mouth was best. We ended up choosing a woman (Cheryl) that has been referred to as "the animal" who seems very client driven and who knows the market backwards and forwards. She's dogged in getting the best deal and best house for her clients, and we bonded over our love of vampire novels and she and Ryan both bonded over their shared loved of Harley's.

We met with Cheryl Friday afternoon to show her which houses we were interested in seeing and what we were basically looking for. We put together a list of "wants" and "must haves". The must have section was what we decided was going to break the house for us. If the house didn't have these things, it was off the list.

Wants:

• Livable basement
• Garage
• 1.5+ bathrooms
• Hardwood floors (or the ability to put them in ASAP-carpet literally makes my skin crawl)
• Curb appeal
• Minimal yard

Must Haves:

• At least 2 bedrooms
• Good natural lighting
• 1200+ Sq. Ft.
• High ceilings
• Nothing built after 1950
• Upgrade-ability

Our "must have" list isn't all that extensive, so we were able to pick out about 6 different houses we were wanting to see right away. There are only about 16 homes in our preferred area in our price range, so pickings are slim. 

So on Saturday, the search began!

MLS Number: 12-520
Year Built: 1949
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 1
Square Footage: 1,184
Comments: This was the first house EVER that we looked at and for that, it will always hold a special place for me. That being said, it was a very compartmentalized house that I'm not sure would be able to have an open concept plan, ever. The basement wasn't useable and there was a really creepy old doll in one of the bedrooms (it scared the bejesus out of me). The basement wasn't livable, it would only be used as storage space or a small shop space, and the upstairs would not be comfortable for any type of living. It did have a cool outdoor space, but it wasn't enough to redeem the rest of the property. This was an instant pass.

MLS Number: 13-661

Year Built: 1948

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms:  2

Square Footage: 1,580

Comments: This house had the most potential for maximizing space of any that we saw on Saturday. It had a decent sized main floor and a HUGE unfinished basement as well as some interesting attic space. The concerning piece was that the windows were leaking and molding the wood floors. When I see mold in a house, new or old, I am concerned. There was no yard space to speak of (which was fine by me) but the house was on a corner lot which wasn't in a good location. There are scummy apartments across the street and on the lot right next door which is a huge turn off for me because I would be nervous any night that Ryan isn't home, and I don't want to be creeped out in my own home. It's off the list.

MLS Number: 13-356

Year Built: 1935

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 1

Square Footage: 1,343

Comments: This house is really cute. It had a closed in porch, wonderful natural lighting, a cool upstairs loft area for the master, and some recent upgrades. There were wood floors throughout that were in decent condition and two bedrooms on the main floor that were workable. The down side was that it was on a pretty busy street with no neighborhood feel, and the river view was obscured by a HUGE power plant and signs to the local pizza joint. There was a basement, but it was a pretty short ceiling with majorly sloping floors that rendered it basically unusable. There was also a porch off the back of the house that didn't have a door from the house out to it. The previous owners had definitely put some work into this house, but you could tell it lacked the professional touch. This house was also at the top of our price range, so it was put in the maybe column. 

MLS Number: 13-176

Year Built: 1900

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2

Square Footage: 1,642

Comments: Oh boy, where to start on this one. First I will start off by saying Ryan and I were really excited to view this house. It's in a different neighborhood than we've looked before, with hardwoods and a considerable amount of room. The second we stepped in though, we noticed some MAJOR problems. For those who have never been to Astoria, OR, I will tell you it's a hilly beast. Think Seattle or San Francisco. One of the main concerns when buying a house is that it's in a slide zone. Yes, this is as bad as it sounds. A slide zone is where your house has the potential to wash down a hill into whatever might be in it's way. Our realtor said her best guess is that this house is in a slide zone. What we found when we entered was an uneven mess of a house that I literally felt drunk walking in. The kitchen cabinets wouldn't even stay closed, and it was like a fun house. I don't even need to continue with this review. 

This was the end of our house hunting for Saturday. There were two other houses that were top on our list to see that needed 24 hour notice to the tenants that currently live there. We were able to schedule appointments for Sunday. 

MLS Number: 13-859

Year Built: 1885

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2

Square Footage: 2,237

Comments: This house was everything I wanted it to be and so, so much more. It is so gorgeous and timeless and fabulous, but it needs work. It's been a rental and has had some funny things done to it, but the bones make my heart race. I am so in love with everything about this house, but it scares the crap out of me. A house that was built in the 1800's could be a money pit for sure. The area is also known as a slide zone, but only the inspection will tell us if it's at risk. There is so much curb appeal and room for it to be so amazing some day at such a great bargain. It's so bright with views of the river from all over the house, original hardwoods and 12 foot ceilings, I just die. It's the only house that has inspired me and got my mind racing with all the possibilities, but like I said, I'm still nervous about it. 

MLS Number: 13-802

Year Built: 1917

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 1.5

Square Footage: 1,200

Comments: Ryan really had high hopes for this house. It is cute and does have a lot of Craftsman charm. The view is also pretty cool from this house, it overlooks the port. There were some problems with it though. It was seemed pretty tiny to me, and the upstairs space was literally made for oompa loompas. Every step further into the house, you could see Ryan's little heart crush a little bit more. He was so sad that it wasn't going to be the house for us. Nixed. 

So where does that leave us? We're doing a second walk through the beautiful Victorian tonight, and we're thinking about putting in an offer (!!!!!!!!!!!). I will know more tonight and will update with more pictures of the house and more knowledge about the whole signing process. 

I will end with:

HOLY SHIT WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!!!!

The House that Built Me

...Or us really. I've been excited to announce this for a while now, but wanted to wait until we had more information. Ryan and I went to the bank to see about a home loan today!!!! This might seem like it's coming totally out of the blue, but it's something we have been talking about for at least six months. I thought it would be interesting, since we're young, first time house buyers, and most of my friends are young and still renting, to chronicle (good and bad) our experiences with the whole process! I know next to nothing about buying a house, getting a loan or working with a realtor, so what I do learn along the way, I'd love to share, so here goes nothing!

Our Facts:

I understand that everyone is going to be in a different financial situation than us, but I wanted to share our history and what we're up against trying to secure a loan. So, as most people know, Ryan and I are both recovering alcoholics (for those that didn't know that about Ryan, email me later... I've got pictures), and being an alcoholic sometimes not only hurts you emotionally and physically, but financially as well. In AA, it's called "financial wreckage". I was lucky in that I never had any major debts, for me, my financial security, even when drinking was still a number one priority, so my credit score is still intact. I can't say Ryan has been so lucky. While he was out YOLOing it up, he was racking up bad debt like mad and letting accounts, credit cards, you name it, get sent to collections. So where my credit score falls somewhere in the upper 700's (best), he's barely scraping by in the low 600's (bad).

I don't get away scott free though in the loan hunt. Having gone to treatment and thus being let go from Enterprise, I have a 6 month employment gap on my record with only a little over a year at my current job. My understanding is that lenders like to see you have two solid years of earning history before you're a shoe-in for a loan. It also hurts that I only brought in about $7,000 total on last year's tax return. Ouch. Ryan has been working on his credit score ever since he got a car loan last year. Previously, he had something like a 550 (which is like lower than any D level score I've ever seen). Over the past year, he has worked hard to make financial amends by paying off creditors (to the tune of around $6000) and making car payments on time and over the minimum amount. Unbeknownst to either of us though, three more creditors came forward after the last pull of Ryan's credit score, so that's what we're working on paying off now. That will hopefully boost his score for the future.

Through the lending institution we chose to go to first, Wauna Federal Credit Union, there are two loans for first time home buyers. A USDA loan and an FHA loan. From what I gathered, the main difference between the two loans, is that the USDA loan requires 0% down at signing, where as the FHA loan requires roughly 3% of the cost of the house you're buying at time of signing. In order to qualify for a USDA loan, both applicants must have over a 640 credit score on all three credit score models (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), which we didn't. The good news is that we did qualify to submit our information for the FHA loan, but just barely. What I mean by that is that Ryan's lowest model scored him literally one point over the necessary 620. Yikes.

From here, Natasha, our home loan officer, submits our tax returns, pay stubs and credit history to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). At this point, they are looking at our past earnings and future earning potential to see if we are good enough candidates to pay back their loan. We have no idea what dollar figure they'll come back with, if any at all, so now we wait.

What Happens Next?

If we are approved for a loan and it's to our liking, we well get a letter of pre-approval from the bank and we will head out the door to look for a realtor. If we are not approved, or not approved for enough money to buy anything substantial, we'll put this whole process on hold. I will continue working at KLEAN, building my work history, Ryan will continue to pay off his debts, and we will start saving for a future down payment and renovation budget (because of course we are getting a fixer upper!!).

But that's not the fun part, so venture with me, if you will, into my dreamboat fantasy land.

Because Ryan and I are both recovering alcoholics and find it ever so hard to remain "in the moment", we have already picked out the house we are going to buy (without ever having set foot in it, naturally).

Here she is in all of her charming 1900's glory. For those who want to see more pictures and scope the scene, the MLS number is 13-589. She needs some work and love, and I have all of that to spare. 

Obviously, if we are approved, we will check out multiple houses before we make any major decisions. From what I have heard, if you buy a house, you want to wait at least 5 years before putting it back on the market, so we'll be locked into whatever we decided to purchase for at least that long. I know that we're not looking to find our forever home right now (especially not in Astoria Effing Oregon of all places), but this is a starter house, which we could see potentially turning into a rental down the road. It's also coming up on summer which is primetime for house selling, so us making a gut decision with buying the first house whose pictures we've fallen in love with is a little silly. So don't worry friends, our sanity is (sort of) intact. 

Going back briefly to what happens if we're not approved, I will let you guys know what our plan of attack is. How we propose to save money, pay off debts and live a more frugal lifestyle (because who doesn't want that). 

If we are approved, look forward to realtor advice, our list of "must haves" in a house and some overall really exciting photos of our house hunting process, plus MUCH more!!! We'll know sometime early next week so stay tuned!!

Also:

If any of you out there have any first time home buyers experience or advice, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE (!!!) contact me! We are greenhorns on the ship of life.