FIRST. Let me just tell you what a relief it is to be able to share this juicy info with you! FINALLY! I have been spending quite a bit of time on this lately, and it's tough to not be able to share that with you in my content!
Next, I have to make this a short blog post because it's an hour past my bedtime already, SO I think that I'll break this up into a mini-series on the blog because then I can share as the process unfolds.... and you guys will have to play the waiting game like I've had to recently! ;)
OK. The title gives it away, KIND OF. Yes, we put in an offer on a house. But the location (is it in Dallas? ok, yes.), photos, and everything else will remain a mystery until next week except for the info I'm sharing today, which will be the FIRST (of many) rounds of drama we've been through lately!
Before diving in, I want to clarify that everyone we have worked with on our end has been so helpful, gone above and beyond the call of duty, and we really feel like we have had the best team around us throughout this process!
Let's back up...it all starts with Zillow. I've been spending more time on Zillow than Instagram lately! ;) I knew that we eventually wanted to move and I was actively looking, so I alerted a friend/realtor and we decided to start the mortgage pre-approval process. I will spare you the details but WOW this step was so time consuming. They want any and every document pertaining to your finances! Long story short: we got approved for an amount and I started narrowing down my house search based on our now agreed-upon budget.
So a couple weeks ago (yes, it's been such a struggle not to share this!), we saw a property on Zillow. Adam had already told me that this area of town was too far from his office, but of course, I was still looking there! ;) For some reason, the look of this property was so unique that we were both interested immediately when we saw it. It was in our budget so...
we decided to do a drive-by (like a couple of creeps!).
We pulled up to the property and were like...omg. This could be great. Needs some work, but wow. Tons of potential! We called our realtor to come meet us so we could tour the inside of the house. One of the neighbors even came out to say hi and gave us the scoop.
We decided that we wanted to put an offer in on the property. We came up with an over-asking number that we thought sounded juicy and submitted our offer that same weekend! We were pumped. We were praying and asking God to just make it super clear if it's a yes or a no.
Immediately the seller counter-offered for an additional $5k. We thought that was odd given that we were over asking, the current Dallas real estate market, and that they had told us that there was already another offer in that was higher than ours. Why counter when you could just accept the higher offer?
Something didn't quite add up, so we said no.
Drama: Part One:
THAT'S when the drama started! We thought, man this has been a cake-walk...why is everybody whining about the market right now? LOL joke was on us. Our lender started to dig in for final approval after we put in our offer and noticed that Adam's old employer labeled his sales commission as "bonus" and his new employer calls it "commission," which isn't a problem at all except that you need one year of consistent *type* of income. So were were notified that day that we were no longer pre-approved for the amount we thought we were! As we had an offer pending!! (again, this lender was fantastic, and just going by the guidelines....but we didn't meet the criteria!)
We scrambled to see if we could find a new lender who would be able to work with us. We found one. BUT he was in Mexico on vacation! He literally worked while he was on vacation for us, but there was only so much he could do away from the office! We were panicking!
He came back from vacation, and by some miracle, got us pre-approved!
We needed to submit another offer now that we had a new lender since our first offer was essentially void.
Drama: Part Two:
We pulled together our new offer and our realtor reached out to the selling agent to update them on details.
THAT'S when we found out...
the seller had just officially accepted an offer from an investor in California!
WHAT?! After all that?!!?! Come on!
We still put in an offer as a "backup offer" in hopes that if the original buyer backs out, they might accept ours.
There was a small sliver of hope because the investor had put in an offer WITHOUT seeing the property in person! There is a huge eye-sore on the property that you see clearly in person, but can't see in photos. Adam and I had already decided that it was worth it to us to remove/fix it, but this investor hadn't even seen it yet!
So now we wait for the investor to come to Dallas to tour the property and do an inspection, etc. They have an "option period" where they can back out of the deal, and they're only losing $500.
So we are hopeful that they might back out!
This has been such a time-consuming process and it's been tough for me not to share what I'm spending a lot of my time on. Originally, we planned to wait until we either got the house or we didn't get the house before sharing. Now we are in limbo again, and I couldn't stand not being able to share about it! So we made the decision to share the process step by step as it's unfolding, and maybe you'll feel a little bit of the range of emotions that we have been feeling lately!
We are still praying for the Lord to make it super clear to us if this is a yes or a no, and for wisdom along the way.
I'll keep you updated, of course! Hopefully I'll be able to share good news next week!