Weekend Update

Just wanted to share. We went to Rupert this weekend to celebrate Candice's, 23rd birthday! We had a ton of fun and were able to enjoy listening to General Conference together.

That was a neat experience. President Gordon B Hinckley passed away January 25th so the first session of General Conference was a Solemn Assembly in which we recognized the new Prophet and President of The Church, Thomas S Monson. That was pretty cool. Not that often you can experience that kind of a meeting.

While the boys went to the Priesthood session Saturday night, Candice, Merena, Jordan's girlfriend, Tiffany, and I put together our 72-hour kit lists and shopped for the food. That was a fun. The best thing I got from the whole experience was that Justin and I had been forgetting to plan for our dogs! Oooops! So we now have 72-hour kits for Sadie and Copper. Not like it takes much for them, but at least now we have a food supply, extra water, extra leashes, and some extra treats for them if we ever were in a situation that we needed them.

Candice sure looks pregnant :) It's cute though. She and Sadie had a special bond this weekend I think. They are about the same into their gestation period right now. Even though Sadie will only be prego for about 2 months, she's 3 weeks along and Candice is 4 months along. They were funny together.

We had a great time and can't wait for the family to come up in a couple weeks to help us move! Candice and Chad will be finding out what they are having on the 25th, so they'll be bringing good news that weekend!

Why Use A Realtor????

So yeah, I work at a real estate company. I know many of you think that Realtors are just like car salesman. While some, maybe even many of them are, I want to share my personal experiences with you.

I feel strongly, and not just because of my line of business, that everyone should always use a Realtor. Especially when buying a home. Here are some of the benefits I have found in using a Realtor:

1. Your Realtor can help you determine your buying power -- that is, your financial reserves plus your borrowing capacity. If you give a Realtor some basic information about your available savings, income and current debt, he or she can refer you to lenders best qualified to help you. Most lenders -- banks and mortgage companies -- offer limited choices.

2. Your Realtor has many resources to assist you in your home search. Sometimes the property you are seeking is available but not actively advertised in the market, and it will take some investigation by your agent to find all available properties.

3. Your Realtor can assist you in the selection process by providing objective information about each property. Agents who are Realtors have access to a variety of informational resources. Realtors can provide local community information on utilities, zoning. Schools, etc. There are two things you'll want to know. First, will the property provide the environment i want for a home or investment? Second, will the property have resale value when i am ready to sell?

4. Your Realtor can help you negotiate. There are myriad negotiating factors, including but not limited to price, financing, terms, date of possession and often the inclusion or exclusion of repairs and furnishings or equipment. The purchase agreement should provide a period of time for you to complete appropriate inspections and investigations of the property before you are bound to complete the purchase. Your agent can advise you as to which investigations and inspections are recommended or required.

5. Your Realtor provides due diligence during the evaluation of the property. Depending on the area and property, this could include inspections for termites, dry rot, asbestos, faulty structure, roof condition, septic tank and well tests, just to name a few. Your Realtor can assist you in finding qualified responsible professionals to do most of these investigations and provide you with written reports. You will also want to see a preliminary report on the title of the property. Title indicates ownership of property and can be mired in confusing status of past owners or rights of access. The title to most properties will have some limitations; for example, easements (access rights) for utilities. Your Realtor, title company or attorney can help you resolve issues that might cause problems at a later date.

6. Your Realtor can help you in understanding different financing options and in identifying qualified lenders.

7. Your Realtor can guide you through the closing process and make sure everything flows together smoothly.

8. When selling your home, your Realtor can give you up-to-date information on what is happening in the marketplace and the price, financing, terms and condition of competing properties. These are key factors in getting your property sold at the best price, quickly and with minimum hassle.

9. Your Realtor markets your property to other real estate agents and the public. Often, your Realtor can recommend repairs or cosmetic work that will significantly enhance the salability of your property. Your Realtor markets your property to other real estate agents and the public. In many markets across the country, over 50% of real estate sales are cooperative sales; that is, a real estate agent other than yours brings in the buyer. Your Realtor acts as the marketing coordinator, disbursing information about your property to other real estate agents through a multiple listing service or other cooperative marketing networks, open houses for agents, etc. The Realtor code of ethics requires Realtors to utilize these cooperative relationships when they benefit their clients.

10. Your Realtor will know when, where and how to advertise your property. There is a misconception that advertising sells real estate. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS studies show that 82% of real estate sales are the result of agent contacts through previous clients, referrals, friends, family and personal contacts. When a property is marketed with the help of your REALTOR, you do not have to allow strangers into your home. Your REALTOR will generally prescreen and accompany qualified prospects through your property.

11. Your Realtor can help you objectively evaluate every buyer's proposal without compromising your marketing position. This initial agreement is only the beginning of a process of appraisals, inspections and financing -- a lot of possible pitfalls. Your Realtor can help you write a legally binding, win-win agreement that will be more likely to make it through the process.

12. Your Realtor can help close the sale of your home. Between the initial sales agreement and closing (or settlement), questions may arise. For example, unexpected repairs are required to obtain financing or a cloud in the title is discovered. The required paperwork alone is overwhelming for most sellers. Your Realtor is the best person to objectively help you resolve these issues and move the transaction to closing (or settlement).

So now that you know the "fact" side of using a Realtor, let me tell you about Justin and my most recent experience in purchasing our home:

Justin and I decided to start looking at purchasing a home shortly after I received my promotion at work - yay! Keep in mind that I work at a real estate office and have full access to every single home that is in the system here in the Treasure Valley as well as some in other parts of the state. As we began looking, I found several homes in our price range. Justin and I did all of the research. We did our own comps, started the loan approval process, pulled all the houses we wanted to see. We felt pretty good, like we had a hang on what was going to happen. The only thing we needed was a Realtor to open the homes so we could peak inside and make our final decision. Boy, were we wrong!

As it turns out, most of the homes we'd pulled were short sales. We'd heard that you could get a pretty good deal on short sale homes since the owner doesn't have a say in the sales price - the bank that holds the loan does. What we didn't know was while that is true, it can take up to 3 months to hear back from the bank whether your offer was accepted or not. That means if you submit an offer, you could wait months and then find out that your offer wasn't accepted and you'd have to start the process all over. Loan rates would be different, the homes you had previously viewed would no longer be on the market, the housing costs may jump during that time, etc. Way too many variables for us. PLUS, we needed to be moving out of our rental before July 1.

So our Realtors, Barbara Dawson and Kim Davis, helped us understand a lot of that information. We found a really cute home on Queens Drive, about 1/4 mile north of my parent's place. It was wonderful. It had RV parking, a storage shed, 2 car garage, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. It was only 950 sqft, but it was great and the price seemed right. The home had been on the market for 70 days without any activity, it seemed perfect! Kim helped us write up an offer and submit it to the other agency who took it to their sellers. Lo and behold, another offer came in on the same day offering more than asking price and we lost the house.

Luckily, we had seen another home about 3 miles east of the first one. It was on Bonneville. It too seemed really cute. It was further from the freeway than we had hoped and not quite on the right kind of road, but we liked it. We loved the fact that the back door was off the linoleum covered dining room instead of the light carpet like the Queens house. However, we didn't get the chance to go in the home as the tenants were not exactly cooperating. We went ahead and wrote up an offer on this home for full asking price with a contingency upon seeing the inside of the home. Since Justin and I both work during the day and Justin had school, the earliest we could get out to Nampa to see the home was after 6 - much too dark to really check out a home.

Our offer was accepted and the next day the tenants called Barb and Kim letting them know that we could see the home that day between 1-2:30pm. YA RIGHT! Like we could make it out there during that time frame. Barb and Kim surprised both Justin and me, they drove clear out to Nampa during that time frame to check out the house. They also viewed several other homes in the area that were in our price range! At this point, Justin and I were more than impressed with Barb and Kim, but the story doesn't stop here.

As it turns out, the home on Bonneville was NASTY inside. The carpet that appeared light tan/white in the pictures was almost black everywhere the furniture wasn't. The walls were gross and needed repainting, it smelled like cigarette smoke and dog urine. Barb called me while they were still in Nampa and told me that she wouldn't sell us that home because of the horrible condition it was in. So, we were able to back out of that deal 100% without losing anything. We would have been in a sad state if our Realtors hadn't told us to include the contingency upon seeing the inside of the home.

The hunt continued.

We found a better, bigger home than the first two we had made offers on. It was in a great subdivision about 1 mile south of my parents. It was actually right next to East Valley Middle School, across the street from the Stake Center we had our wedding reception at. It wasn't on the main road, had good looking neighbors, easy access to the freeway, it was great. One of the bedrooms needed repainting - it was green and blue, the backyard was...well...there wasn't a backyard really. We also weren't real excited that the backdoor went right in to the light carpet. But we loved the location and the overall condition of the home. So we went ahead and made an offer.

It took a whole week to hear back from the bank who owned this property. When we finally heard from them, they informed us that they had received two other offers over the weekend that were higher priced. Because of the creditability and reputation of our Realtors they went ahead and accepted our offer and agreed to pay our closing costs. This was great! We were due to close March 28. All we had left to do was wait the time and have the home inspection done.

Our home inspection kept getting put off because the bank couldn't get the home dewinterized. So we waited and waited. Finally, we were able to get the inspection done the Friday before our estimated closing date. Lo and behold the inspector found 1" of water in the crawl space which meant the water table was too high and the drainage system wasn't properly installed for the water table levels.

We also found out that day that the home loan we had been pre-approved for wasn't going to work because we didn't actually qualify for it! WHAT?!?! We were so upset. We had been working with the pre-approval for almost two months now and couldn't figure out why our lender had pre-approved us for a loan we didn't qualify for. The loan was a 100% IHFA loan. Which meant no money down. But we didn't qualify because for the debt to income ratios, IHFA requires you to include student loan payments even if you won't be paying on them for several years. By including these in our debt to income ratio, we didn't qualify. Luckily, our lender came up with a solution to switch to an FHA loan which is only 97% financing and requires 3% down but we were able to raise the sales price 3% and include it all in our loan so we really got 100% financing.

Once we realized all these issues, Barb and Kim immediately had a drainage system guy go out to the property the same day, Barb went with the guy. They got an estimate on the water issue. We sent an addendum asking the bank to pay for the new drainage system ($5000) increase the sales price $3597 to pay for our 3% down and extend the closing date to allow adequate time to get the new drains in place. Barb and Kim ALSO went and spoke with our lender, they were able to voice our emotions and get some things set in place.

We submitted the addendum on Friday, the same day everything else went down. On Wednesday we still hadn't heard anything and Justin and I started getting really hesitant about the water issue. So we decided to go look at some more houses...just in case. While we were out, Barb showed us 7 homes we hadn't seen prior. Some were okay, some not so much, but we kept looking. We found a really cute one on Sunflower, which was in my parents ward...but it wasn't quite right. Then we went and found THE ONE.

The new house is located at 3521 Sunnyridge Road. It's gorgeous. The whole home is perfect. It has the cutest kitchen, best layout, biggest lot of all the homes we have seen. It already has concreted RV parking next the garage pad. The yard is .20 acres with a gorgeous well manicured lawn. Beautiful landscaping both in front and back. The back door enters into the linoleum dining room, there is a place to put a doggie gate to keep the dogs in the kitchen area during the days. It's a split bedroom design with a nice sized master. A separate laundry room that ISN'T the entrance to the home from the garage. The best part is that the home is NOT in a subdivision, but it has a lot of the same perks. It's backyard is adjacent to the backyards of the homes in the subdivision, but we don't have any Home Owner Association dues nor can anyone tell us what we can and can't do on our property. It's wonderful!

Barb and Kim also found us an amazing loan opportunity that our lender didn't even know about. The home on Sunnyridge is owned by HUD and therefore was qualified for a special $100 down payment FHA loan rather than the 3% down loan. Our lender said she had never heard of the program and so Wells Fargo probably didn't offer it. Barb and Kim made some phone calls and found out that Wells Fargo does in fact offer the loan. They informed our lender that she either needed to do her research and offer us the loan or they were going to take us somewhere that does offer it. Our lender was amazingly able to locate how to offer the loan.

I wish I could say that this was the end of our chaotic story. Ha ha ha, but I can't.

As I said before, the home was owned by HUD. The way HUD works is they submit homes on the market for one week. After the designated time frame all offers that are submitted are then reviewed and the offer that nets HUD the most money wins the home. While Barb and Kim were eagerly putting together our offer before the Sunday midnight deadline, they discovered that because of the lack in HUD homes recently, Group One had accidentally let their HUD license expire back in 2005. We couldn't submit an offer on the home without having a licensed HUD broker represent us. It was going to take 2-3 months to get relicensed. SO Barb called every broker in the Treasure Valley asking if someone would submit our offer for us. Barb was able to get a broker at a Boise office to represent us and still pay the 3% commission to Barb and Kim for all their hardwork. She told Barb that only for her would she do this. Again, our agents' reputation paid off for us. We were able to get the offer submitted on time and we won the bid!

We were able to write a termination of contract on the home with the water issues and received our Earnest Money back.

Sadly....the story continues. Somehow, communication between HUD and the broker who was sub-representing us got derailed. Our good friend, Chris, was on the HUD website and sent me an email asking how close the attached listing was to the home we were buying. I nearly fainted. The home he sent was supposed to be our home! I quickly called Kim and Barb and they got right on it. Apparently HUD never received a copy of our Earnest Money check that the other broker says she sent them. Because of their rules they were forced to put the home back on the market for the weekend. We had to resubmit our offer and hope and pray that no one else out bid us.

WE WON THE BID...AGAIN!

We are signing docs on Tuesday, May 20th and will be moving in on Friday, May 23rd.

If anyone wants to come and help us move, we'll need your help the weekend of May 23rd.

In conclusion, I must say that while I felt like I had a hang on this whole real estate thing and I thought that I was going to be able to do most of the work, just needing a Realtor to open the door for me. I WAS WRONG!!!! The whole process is a lot more than just making an offer on a home. It's more than finding a place and checking it out. Without our Realtors, I think I would have completely given up on trying to buy a home. And who knows, maybe we would have ended up in a home that had problems we couldn't afford to fix.

The best part about using a Realtor when buying a home is that the seller actual is the one who pays your Realtor...it's a no risk relationship that can bring you unbelievable comfort and advise.

A Big Girl....

I always knew that someday I'd have to grow up and start being a big girl. I really thought that would happen right when I moved out and went to college...but I think I digressed once I got to Rexburg! So then, I thought maybe when I transferred to Boise State and wasn't living in the "college town" setting I would be forced to grow up...it didn't happen then either.

I started a "real job" working "real hours" with people who had already done the college thing, the parent thing, and are well into the grandparent thing. All I've learned about being a big girl from that is when you are 10-60+ years younger than all your co-workers...you can't really be a big girl!

So as life kept rolling, I finally found the love of my life. Justin and I were married in January, 2007. I thought for sure, I was now going to be a big girl. Ha ha ha ha, yeah right! We've been married over a year now and I am still far from being that big girl my mom always told me I was going to become.

We are now less than 20 days from purchasing our first home. I have started my first garden inside already so once we move in I'll be ready to plant my seedlings. And as I sit here, thinking about my past stepping stones, I am really thinking that this might be the move towards being a big girl...but I am starting to think this whole big girl thing is a lie and that really, we're all little girls forever :)