House Hunters: Lingwood Edition (Episode 2.6, finale)

Just over three months ago Mark and I took a trip to go house hunting. After scouring the real estate market online, looking at nearly every listing possible with my mom, and narrowing it down to our top choices, we made our pick and put in an offer.

After we told my dad about the house we picked, he congratulated us and reminded us that there "is a long way between picking a house and getting your keys." Wise man, that guy.

We knew we were buying a short sale and that would mean a lot of waiting and uncertainty. We also knew that IF we got the house, we'd be in for a bit of work. 

Our first weeks of waiting for news were filled with mostly radio silence. A couple of times we had to sign and scan some paper work but mostly we waited. Then, just a week before our Australia trip, we heard that the bank was intending to approve our short sale in just a few days! Knowing how valuable being present for the home inspection would be, we made some last minute changes to our plans and added two days in the bay area to our trip. There, we did our inspections.

We thought for sure the bank's short sale approval would come while we were in Australia. However, the days turned into weeks and even after we returned home we still hadn't heard a peep. This is about the time that we learned that hurry up and wait is a lot easier than wait and hurry up!

In the beginning of June, Mark woke up one day and said "I think today is the day we're going to hear about the house." Well I'm known for making crazy premonitions and predictions all the time, making myself look really insightful and awesome on the times I am right and just silly the other 98% of the time. But I figure if I predict rain every day, some days I'm bound to be right! In any case, Mark is NOT like that. And when our real estate agent called me that afternoon, all I could think was "of COURSE Mark gets it right!"

However, though we had the short sale approval in hand, we also had a threat of foreclosure. The seller's bank approved the short sale but gave us about 12 days to close or else they would put up the house for auction.

WHAT??

It's just not possible to close in 12 days after the home loan reforms of the past few years. Shoot. What we needed to do was convince the seller's bank that we had a loan and get that closing date extended. The seller's bank wanted a conditional loan approval letter to extend the close date. Our bank wanted an extended closing date before they furnished a conditional loan approval. Stale mate, much? At this point Mark and I actually started doing some serious back up planning. Where would we move? Are there any other better houses on the market? Was this the universe telling us to try again on a different home?

After two long and admittedly tearful days on the phone, we ended up switching lenders. This was a desperate move in the 11th hour and involved a TON of paperwork, scanning, emailing, and phone calling. Our new loan officer worked her ARSE off to get our loan application expedited and the conditional approval letter sent.

Finally, we got the seller's bank to extend the closing date to July 12. Whew! The next few weeks Mark and I remained pretty emotionally distant from the house. We stopped dreaming up construction plans, stopped talked about ideas for landscaping, and pretty much just resigned ourselves to letting things unfold on their own. We rushed like mad every time the lender or seller needed anything from us, but other than that we waited. We had a few more dramatic days and a couple more times where we both had to shrug and let it go.

But last week we met with a notary and signed three inches of stacked paper, wired over our down payment, and finalized our home insurance. And then, on July 12....

The county recorded our sale! Escrow closed! Mark and I are officially homeowners!!!! We move in a week! We're both still in a bit of shock that we got the house after all that. It feels weird to own a home but not have it yet, but we'll be there soon.