Day 14

It's our 14th day in contract and we have had pretty smooth sailing so far. Not because it was easy, but because when presented with a roadblock, God simply moved it out of our way and made our path straight again. It's amazing seeing and experiencing first hand the power of prayer.
There were 2 big road blocks that could have killed the entire process in a heartbeat.
1) The appraisal.
We agreed with the seller upon a specific price in the contract agreement. The agreement states that the amount to be loaned to us is dependent on the appraised value of the home. In other words, the bank will not give us more money than they say the home is worth. For them it's a risk they won't take.
So if the home appraised for higher than our offer amount, the bank would have no problem loaning us the funds, but may make the seller think twice and want to renegotiate. If it appraises for less, then the bank will only give us that amount and if we want to take the risk, the remainder of the amount agreed is on us, which could be anywhere from $1000 to $15,000. This could kill our deal.
We asked for our friends and family to pray with us that the house would appraise for what we offered so to avoid any of these further complications.
A few days later, the appraisal was in. It had appraised for EXACTLY the amount we prayed for. Praise God! That was amazing.

Then came 2) FHA loan requirements
FHA is pretty stickler about the terms by which they give out loans. One of those terms is that the house in question has to be listed for a certain period of time to be considered for this type of loan. Due to the situation that this round is technically a For Sale By Owner and that it was not listed in order to save the seller the 3% listing fee, our house on Opal Crest does not meet this criteria at this stage. If the Underwriter says that this cannot qualify because it doesn't meet this contingency, the deal is over. No loan. No house.
Again we gathered our friends and family in prayer.
The next day we heard back from the underwriter.
Because of our unique situation, and that we were in contract already when the house was listed in April, and because of all the garbage we've had to go through to even try to buy this home, the underwriter decided that she was totally fine with our history on this property and that there would be an exception to this rule just for us. :)

I feel like God really wants us here. He keeps manifesting His power by continually breaking down these huge walls and making the impossible happen. I mean, the chances of all of these crazy details happening by chance?? There's no way.
We keep finding that if one thing had happened only slightly differently, we would have no chance. We had to go through a 4 month short sale and losing the home to a foreclosure auction to have even had the opportunity to make a deal by this time of the year. If we hadn't we still might not have known where we were going to be.

It's so crazy, that even though we may have more roadblocks to come, my faith that God has our best at heart reminds me to look at all he's done and not to worry about a thing. He's in control. He's got it. All I have to do is trust.

Urban Farmer Dreamin

I'm surprised that I haven't yet written about the changes over the past week! Ah!
Welllllll, last Wednesday we found out that the owner officially accepted our offer and that we are in escrow! Woo hoo! It was a nerve racking week and a half but finally we got the answer that we wanted. :)
We're getting more and more excited as things progress smoothly, no bumps in the road so far so we hope that trend stays true until the end of this 35 day process.
It's nice being able to have a bit of a glimpse of what our life will be like for the next few years with a specific place in mind. It's been so up in the air for so long, almost like we've been dating different houses and wondering which one could be "The One" and now we might have found the one we get to marry. Haha if that makes sense.
Being able to visualize something instead of the idea of something has made my mind explode with artistic ideas of how to make this house our home. I can't get too ahead of myself though, since the keys are not yet in our hands, but I can daydream a bit right?

So I've always wanted to be an urban farmer. Random right? But ever since I was little and we would run into my best friends mom's garden and eat fresh veggies right out of the ground, I have dreamed of having my own garden full of fresh veggies. Actually, probably since that time when I was really little and buried my moms store bought veggies in the backyard... haha. Anyways, it's been a long time.
I've been on Pinterest a ton looking at different designs for garden structures. Ways to keep the garden safe from cats turning it into their litter box (wood frames with screens?), ways to make it cute and inexpensive (painted a cute color with a fun gate?), ways to make it a place that I can come and relieve stress by purging my garden of weeds and bugs (DIY bug spray)
I love vegatables :)

Anyways, this is our life for the next month. Hoping and waiting and turning in more paperwork, and driving to meet appraisers, home inspectors, etc. We're praying hard that it will all go smoothly and that in 30 days we'll be moving in!

Heart in my Throat

Well it's been a week since we gave our offer to the new owner of our house on Opal Crest.
It's been a long week of phone calls, faxing, signing, emailing, negotiating, etc. It's all kind of a blur.
Tuesday: They countered, we countered back.
Wednesday: We heard back that they countered again, we basically accepted their terms, but didn't hear anything back Thursday or Friday.
Saturday: Finally, while we were once again in the middle of nowhere, 4 wheeling on Fordyce trail, my phone rings.

It was our realtor.
He had finally heard back. The owner had been really busy all week to start.
He also just found out that Home Depot charged his credit card anyways for the carpet and paint since the contractor already ordered and cut the carpet.
He thought the deal was off since we would now have to pay for the carpet and paint.
But our realtor told him that as long as we've waited for the house that doesn't he think we would still like to try to work something out??
So he gave him a call and talked. The conversation ended with an agreement that the new owner would find out just how much of the carpet he can cancel, and that whatever was left we would agree to pay for. While it was a bummer, we knew that having carpet already installed would buy us time to save up for the flooring that we really want. It sounded like the guy was still willing to work with us.
Then about an hour or so later, or realtor called again to let us know that the guy was able to move the carpet order to another one of his investment properties and that we would no longer have to pay for that. All we needed to do was wait until Tuesday for him to contact the escrow company and he would have the contract over to us.
Today is Tuesday.
My heart is in my throat as we patiently wait to see if he kept his word.