The Lowdown on Our New Home

If my vague Facebook statuses about wanting prayers for our new home are driving you insane, I'm sorry. I really didn't have the time or emotional energy to write down every detail of the nightmare we have been going through in order to get this new house. So here's the details of our last few months.

In March, we got multiple offers on our current home and accepted a great one from a very nice family. I actually think I'd be friends with the mom because she's that awesome. She knew that we didn't have a new house yet so she agreed to give us occupancy in our old home until June 25. Perfect! We had plenty of time to find our new home.

Fast forward a few weeks. We find a beautiful new construction spec home on a 1/2 acre lot. The home owners association allows fences for our dogs, the house overlooks a gorgeous lake and the schools in the area are awesome! Everything is perfect. We give the builder a full price offer and he accepts. We write a $5000 earnest money check and start the mortgage process. 

We wait and wait and wait 3 weeks for the earnest money check to clear and it never does. We are also wondering why the builder isn't finishing the last remaining things on our house so we can close. We find out that somehow someone (we still don't know who) lost our $5000 CHECK! Who loses a check for 5 grand? I'm not pleased but am forced to pay $30 for a stop payment on the check and write another one. The new check clears within a day and the builder starts finishing our home. 

The kids were very anxious about moving so we took them to the new home and also had a tour of their new school. They liked the house and school which settled some nerves.

Fast forward to 10 days ago. We are almost all packed up and ready to move. We are waiting for a clear to close from the mortgage company. Then I get the dreaded email- the appraisal for the house came in $10,000 too low. Most people would think "yahoo! We're gonna get a deal on the house!". Apparently that's not what happens on new construction homes. Builders rarely lower their purchase price and if the buyers want the house bad enough, they bridge the 10k gap. Excuse my French but that's complete bullshit. My single income family is not covering the 10k difference for a multimillion dollar building company. Nope not gonna happen. I'm not going to go into our financial details but we saved way too long to have the 20% to put down on the mortgage and we are not sacrificing it and paying PMI to cover the 10k. We also refuse to get another loan to cover the additional 10k. So the builder gives the appraiser additional comparable sold homes to try to convince the appraiser to raise the value. We wait as the clock ticks by and we are days closer to having to be out of our current home. The appraiser comes back with his report and says that he's not raising the value. Ugh. Everyone thinks that's insane so they order to scrap the original appraisal and get a 2nd one. Great right? Nope. In order to get a 2nd appraisal the owner of the appraisal company has to approve it. So this head honcho reviews the appraisal (for the 3rd time) and determines that it's accurate and there's no need for a new one. Wonderful.

Fast forward to yesterday. We are now 33 days from having to be out of our current home. Everyone (our realtor, the mortgage company etc) are scrambling trying to find a way to raise the value of the home. Their idea- fire the mortgage company, apply at a new one and cross your fingers that their appraisal will be higher. There's one major problem with that. The clock is still ticking and we don't have the time to hope that the new company appraises the house higher. We keep suggesting to offer the builder a lower price on the house. I'm not sure why but no one working for me thought that was a good idea and wanted to go about it a different way. 

Remie and I prayed and cried and decided it was time to take the bull by the horns. We were done getting strung alone while everyone else tried to find alternate ways to raise the value of the home. After much debating, Remie told my realtor point blank that she offer the builder $2000 above appraisal. We are running out of time and can't wait any longer in hopes that our situation will change. We told her we wanted an answer by 5pm today. If they say no then we want our $5,000 earnest money back and we will find a different home to buy.

So here we sit. Watching the clock and not knowing what we want the outcome to be. I will be sure to update you on the answer.