Friday, August 15, 2014

Round 2 - homes - 2 / Us - 0

Going into the home buying process after the first round of disappointment was hard, very hard. We decided that we really needed to remember that when things don't work out the first time that you should still try again, get make on the horse, etc.

So we went to our local bank, had a meeting, and once again got pre-qualified. This time both of us qualified and my husbands credit score was even higher than mine! We were cautiously optimistic when told about the possibility of a rural development loan that was 100% no money down, once in a lifetime kind of awesome. When we got the call telling us we barely qualified we were ecstatic.

We began looking at homes and found quite a few that we liked. We looked at one that would fit our needs for size and school zone, but the disclosures listed the water heater, a/c units, and some other things were a bit on the older side. Thinking towards the future we decided to keep it on our list, but kept looking. We found another house that we really liked and made an offer on it. The counter offer came back at full price so we decided to pass on that home.   Once we did the real estate agent from the first house asked us to make an offer on the house we had seen with the older disclosures - so we did.

We met in the middle price wise and felt really good about everything. The repairs came back and listed nothing serious and they agreed to fix the whole list! Not only that, but they agreed to pay for a home warranty to cover some of the items we had been worried about the ages of. It felt like a simple dream.

We had to have an appraisal done to fix some of the other repairs and they agreed to have all those done also. Our loan officer emailed us that our papers had been submitted to the government on the 31st do we were sitting pretty. Both my husband and I were offered new jobs and new positions within our current employment and we felt excited that all of these new prospects were opening up for us. How can so much wonderful happen at once??

The week of closing came and we were really getting excited! Then the bad news... the mortgage company had encountered a computer glitch.. a glitch in which our file had never been sent to USDA in the first place. Which started the two week process of waiting all over again. It's funny how you think that everything is going smoothly and then a problem arises and it's something that no one has ever heard of happening before. It begins the "why me" syndrome.

It's something completely out of your control.  One of those moments of clarity when you realize that you can scream and cry or you can take a deep breath and realize that you have no control, except for your own actions. Remember it's a conscious choice how you react to disappointment. Try to see each disappointment as a challenge to your own commitment to happiness. You can succeed!

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Asking for Forgiveness

I'm stubborn. That's definitely a statement. So asking for forgiveness is often hard for me. It's hard for me to realize I'm wrong a lot. My husband says I have self entitlement. I honestly haven't psycho analyzed myself to the point of finding out how I feel about everything, but I do know that I have a problem.

Hi, I'm Jordan and I often don't feel sorry for things or actions because I feel I'm right. I could blame it on a lot of things. I could blame it on my mother (who often thinks she's right too), or because I'm smart and I read a lot, but honestly I don't want to blame things, people, circumstances... I just want to accept my faults and find a way to fix them.

Before I started writing this blog I used to only write when something negative happened. I realized this trend and decided I needed to focus on the good. It's been a slow process, but I'm changing into more of the person I would like to be.

So how do I fix the fact that I'm always right? Haha that's a hard one! Maybe it's less about who is right or wrong and more about realizing why people feel the way they feel and just letting that be ok. Why does it always have to come down to right or wrong? Can't we just be tolerant of differences?

There is so much negativity in the world and I just don't want to be a supporter of it. I want to be a creative changer and someone that believes in the hope of happiness.

So how does this come back to me and being right?
Well I realize a lot of the fights that I've had with some of my closest friends have been my fault because I couldn't listen. I couldn't understand. No, I CHOSE not to listen or understand. If I had just taken a step back, sat down and listened I would have a few more friends in my life today.

Sometimes being the bigger person means that you have to step back and say, ok let me listen to your side; I care about what you're saying. It's important to me. Don't be afraid to apologize for hurting someone. It's often not the issue that people are upset over, it's often your treatment of them during a disagreement.

It's hard, but this is another thing I will fight for. I want to be the person that people can talk too.

Beginning the house buying process...

You have finally arrived at adulthood. Here you are ready to go to the bank, sign some papers and buy your first home. Sounds easy right? My first experience definitely wasn't!

My husband and I found an ad for a house that had just gone up on the market and were delighted with it! I called the real estate listing agent and was told that we would need a preapproval letter from the bank in order to make an appointment. Not knowing any better I readily agreed I would give them a call.

While listening to the radio on my way to work I heard an ad for a really nice sounding mortgage broker who said that she had access to all kinds of loans and could find the one for me. I was super excited and gave her a call immediately! She collected our information and we began the preapproval process. We discovered through this process that according to lending companies you are not a good candidate for a home loan if you have been responsible and not charged up a bunch of money on credit cards. My husband didn't qualify.

So I decided that was fine and I could just buy the house myself. By the time we had worked out the preapproval process, the house was gone. Disappointed, but not discouraged I asked out mortgage broker for a real estate agent suggestion.

We scheduled an appointment to meet with her and she explained how real estate agents worked and that we would need to sign a contract with her in order for her to represent us and show us any  houses. We told her we would think about it and went home to discuss with family members that had experience purchasing houses. Everyone that we talked to said definitely don't sign a contract. So we began to look for another real estate agent. We found one through my son's school. Thinking it would be great that I had found a real estate agent that had a child my son's age would be great and maybe I would make a great friend!

We met with her and began to see houses. We looked at three or four and found a perfect house and made a bid. Well as it turns out someone else felt it was the perfect house also and out bid us on it. So we began looking some more. We finally found another house we felt might fit our needs ok and made a bid about 5k under asking. They immediately came back at full price and wouldn't budge. Our agent said we shouldn't negotiate any more on the price and didn't think they would take any lower on it. My husband and I had a bad feeling about this, but we're so excited to get a house we pushed the feeling aside and decided to proceed anyways.

We started the inspection process and found several things wrong with the property. Broken windows, broken back door, the garage door was so rusted at the bottom it wouldn't open, electrical outlets that were uncovered, and they had pulled the gutter downspouts off the house and had water running onto the foundation, among other things. We took the list of repairs and requested that the most important things be fixed. We didn't ask for cosmetic damages or frivolous things, just basic functions we needed to make the house liveable. They didn't want to fix anything except an outlet cover and repair the glass in the Windows, but not replace them even though the latches were all broken and the windows were at least 40 years old.

And to top it all off, our loan officer couldn't keep anything straight. She didn't inform us about specific changes to the FHA loans that would never allow us the relief from pmi payments! We talked to our real estate agent about this and explained that she didn't have our best interests in mind and we wanted to change loan companies and use our bank. She told us that we couldn't do that and we needed to stick with what we had.

We were pretty upset. They wouldn't negotiate on price, they wouldn't negotiate on repairs, and we felt like we were being taken advantage of on our loan. Wasn't home buying supposed to be fun? Wasn't this supposed to be a fantastic life event? It was HELL! When we countered on repairs against our real estate agents advice, they made an error saying that they would replace the Windows. I called our real estate agent asking if that was indeed what they meant. She called me back and left a voice mail explaining if we tried to hold them to the replacing of Windows they would sue us and all kinds of things. Being threatened definitely wasn't in any of the literature I had read on home buying.

My husband and I took a minute of silence and really looked at each other. His face was full of anger and frustration and mine looked like someone had just kicked me. We both knew that we couldn't follow through on this contract. It just wasn't worth it.

We ended up voiding our contact and losing some money.  I say some money because it was far, far less then the 100k+ we felt we would have lost on the house. We were disappointed, but we almost felt a sense of relief. It was finally over. I told my husband I never wanted to buy a house again. It was such a horrific experience for us.

We waited about 6-7 months. My husband paid down his school loans, he got an Amazon credit card to make payments on and slowly began to build some credit. I dealt with a lot of depression and frustration at the time and effort I had tried to put into buying a house by myself and just general self-pity.

My husband sat me down one day and told me to really look at the changes that had come about since we lost the house. We were more unified, we didn't fight as much, and we have a common goal. This was no longer just my fight. This was OURS. We would start over and build this memory together. Both signatures on every document. I began to see how very wrong I had always been in my approach to buying a house. I was truly seeing it as a place to live; desperation at not having a roof over my head. I wasn't envisioning the life that would accompany this huge decision. 

We started completely over. New bank, new real estate agent, and a knowledge of the way things are not supposed to go. Equipped with our tools we have started the process of finding our dream home together - like it was always meant to be.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Finding the happiness your searching for.

In my life I've had a ton of things happening that have kept me from writing. The hardest part for me is just starting. I work so many hours that sometimes taking a break and writing down my thoughts or feelings is hard. I often need just what I think I don't have time for. Those few precious moments to just let my thoughts flow into words and self discovery. For me, writing has always been a release. I started a journal in high school and have written in it ever since. I noticed through the passing years that every entry is filed with pain and heartache and very few good things. I notice that I wait until I can't contain my feelings any longer.

Why only write the bad, the sad, the mad, etc? Because I live in the good moments, but dwell in the bad. It's a complicated pattern to break. Why is it that you can go on a rollercoaster have a fantastic time and get off n stub your toe and then only think about how much your toe hurts for the next hour.
Why is joy so fleeting?

Changing the way you think and perceive your emotions is a lot like exercise. I started doing the insanity videos with my husband. I had watched him do them by himself for weeks and he finally talked me into it. I didn't go into them thinking that I was just going to try it.. I went in with commitment in mind. That "no one will change my mind" mentality. I work hard at it and often I feel sore and exhausted, but I feel like I am working towards a personal goal that I can reach. Maybe it's easier because you can see a physical difference in yourself while changing mentally is sometimes harder for you to notice.

In order to really allow yourself to be happy you need to jump into the idea and philosophy of it with commitment in mind. You can't jump ship as soon as the first bad thing happens. Shake out your mind and tell yourself that the good will out weigh the bad today!