We are Home Owners! Her Perspective

The evening we signed the papers was one of the best moments of my life.  We worked hard for this and worked together and made it happen.  After two months of trying to secure all the details, it was surreal that it was finally ours.  We went to our home, opened the door and took in all the work that needed doing.  We didn't know where to start.  That's OK, because the contractors did.  A week later, they were in and tearing up the place.

Our loan allowed us to do the two upstairs bathrooms and the kitchen.  It also allowed us to remove the wall between the dining and living rooms to open up the space.  There is another bathroom on the bottom floor but we will have to finish that one ourselves as the budget wouldn't allow for it.  Everywhere we look we see things we want to fix and we are so excited to put our stamp on the house.

So when they tore out the bathrooms and the kitchen, it was rather exciting.  It was exciting to see something happening and secretly, it was fun that someone else was doing it!  Check out some before pictures of the kitchen,  the hallway bath and the master bath - then we will add at the bottom the photos of Day 1 of demolition.

THE KITCHEN BEFORE

The Hallway Bath Before

 The Master Bath Before

DEMOLITION DAY 

Securing the Loan

Hey folks, Mark here again with the newest installment to our Fugly to Swanky blog.  I apologize to our readers for the gap between posts.  We have been in the process of settling in to our new home and up until recently did not have internet service.  I love you all, but I wasn't typing all of this out on my iPhone lol.

On to the story...

We had been working with a real estate agent and a lender prior to finding Fugly Manor and had already been pre qualified for a loan.  Since our little house was going to need some work and the price was far below what we had qualified for I thought I could simply borrow an additional 30-50k (still leaving us under the qualified amount) for the renovations and call it a day.  I contacted our lender, told him that we had found a house, told him the price and how much we wanted to borrow total.  "You can't do that" was his response.  He proceeded to inform me that with a standard FHA loan that you could only borrow money to pay for the house itself and that we would need a 301k loan and that he didn't do those.  A little disheartened we set out to find a new lender.  Our real estate agent said she could refer us to a lender she had worked with who could do such a loan, and thus began my long and strained relationship with Jordan.

After being given his information I contacted Jordan about a loan.  (Sidebar, I will leave out any last names or names of financial institutions)  After providing him with the standard documents, paystubs, W2's, bank statements, etc.  we were once again pre approved for a loan for a more than sufficient amount to purchase our home and do the renovations.  All seemed like it would be clear sailing from here on out, how wrong I was.

The process of securing the loan was one of, if not, THE MOST STRESSFUL experience of my life.  It all started with securing the down payment.  I should start by stating that because Sabrina is self employed the loan ended up being solely in my name because it was easier that way.  This is only important because of the headaches it caused us.  So it all started with the $2,000 in earnest money that Sabrina put down on the house, which would be applied to the down payment.  We intended to borrow the rest from our families.  The first complication came with the FHA regulations stating that family members could "gift" us money, but not lend it.  The next one being that because Sabrina was not on the loan, neither her or her family could "gift" me money because they could not establish a relationship.  Thus began the long process of "proving" where every cent that went towards the purchase of the house came from.  I at one point cashed in some savings bonds that I had been sitting on to help with the expenses, which I had to "prove" came from the bonds, how much were they for, when did you cash them, etc, etc, etc.  Theses guys needed everything but a blood and urine sample.  I told Sabrina at one point that I felt like one of those wind up monkey toys with the cymbals... Mark the Mortgage Monkey, just wind me up and watch me perform for you.

So after many, MANY bank statements, letters of explanation, copies of canceled checks and all sorts of other "proof" we were in the final stages of having our loan go through.  My "good buddy" Jordan had assured me that we were all set and we were just waiting on the loan to get through underwriting.  Sabrina and I had taken the week off, originally to take a trip to Alabama to visit my family down there, but after that fell through we decided on a week of little day trips, so a we could unwind a little and spend some quality time together.  We took a day to go down to Richmond Va, to visit Maymont and to see her brother.  We were walking the grounds at Maymont, enjoying a wonderful afternoon together when my phone rang... Jordan...

In the eleventh hour I get a call saying our loan is suddenly not approved.  The reason being is that I don't have enough money of my own in the bank.  Now mind you I have used up the majority of my assets in the pursuit of this house.  Sabrina is not allowed to give me any money towards the purchase of our house because she is not related.  My heart sank, I felt defeated, and in this moment my girl came up with the most brilliant of solutions.  I had a car I was thinking about selling, so Sabrina suggested that she "buy" my car as a way to give me money and secure the loan.  Oh but it gets better.  Because her name is on the title, but not the loan, Jordan felt it would look suspicious if she bought my car (because the FHA checks EVERYTHING and wants proof of where every cent comes from).  The solution to this problem ended up being that her Mom (different last name) would "buy" the car so that Sabrina could give me the money.  Long story short, the plan worked and we were finally able to secure our home through some quick thinking and some entry level money laundering lol.

I hope you enjoyed this latest installment.  If not, stay tuned, the fun part is coming up next... Renovations!

Finding the House - His Perspective

Hi, and welcome to my first post in the Fugly to Swanky Blog.

In the last post Sabrina gave her perspective on finding the house (if you haven't read Finding the House - Her Perspective, read that post first) and now for mine.

The hunt for a house began in late May, early June as Sabrina said.  It wasn't a real serious thing at first.  We knew we would need to buy a house eventually (I was living in a two bedroom apartment), but it started out as more of a fun thing to dream about.  Sabrina would send me links to houses on Zillow, we would look at the pictures, and discuss what we did or did not like about the various houses for sale.  In a way it helped us flesh out what it was we were looking for/needed in a house.  Then there was THE house...

It was a foreclosure in Woodbridge, and it had everything.  Lots of bedrooms, two car garage, nice porch, finished basement, big back yard, the list goes on and on.  And all for the rather modest price of $300,000. We decided to go look at it just for fun and fell in love, or at least I did.  We immediately went to see a man about a loan and found out that we qualified for just enough.  We called our agent and told him we wanted the house, but alas in those couple short days, the house had been bid up out of our reach.  Sabrina expected this might happen, but I was crushed.  It was prime house buying season, school was out for the summer and everyone was looking.

This happened to us a few more times before the little brick house, now affectionately nicknamed "Fugly Manor", came into our lives.  An old friend of ours was selling a house she had inherited from her grandmother and it had not yet been officially put on the market.  She was doing some work to the house before listing it and after some begging and badgering she let us come look at it.  I remember being so excited as I drove to Woodbridge, my baby by my side, to see the house for the first time.

We pulled up to the front of a modest brick house, a little shabby looking from the outside, but I tried not to let that bother me as it had not been lived in for awhile.  Nothing a couple days of yard work couldn't take care of.  We entered the house and it was quite a mess inside.  Partially due to the work going on, and partially due to years of neglect.  Two words came to mind... Money Pit...  Granted the work being done explained some of the eyesores, like the huge piles of trash and debris in the middle of the living room and basement floors, but it seemed everywhere I looked was something else that needed to be fixed or replaced.  Sabrina described me as stiff upon entering the house, which is probably about right.  I remember having my arms crossed tightly across my chest as we walked through the house, a grumpy and closed off posture, like a shut up clam.  I looked at her and gave her a firm "NO", but this did not deter her excitement.  I may have seen the visions of possibility dancing through her head if I had not been so negative and close minded.

I kept quiet for the rest of the tour of the house, reserving my feelings for when we got back in the car to drive away.  Cue the rant in 5,4,3,2.1...  "No way, we are not buying this house, what a dump, I don't care how many times we get outbid, we'll keep looking".  She started talking about potential, and her vision for what the house could be and I couldn't see any of it.  What I could see was her excitement, and how happy she was.  I began to soften just a little, "well the location is good, and the price is right, but it just looks like too much work".  Sabrina continued to try and relate her vision, but I still wasn't having it.  I stuck to my guns for about 10-15 minutes down the road before I caved.  I was still very much against buying the house, and couldn't picture a single thing she was talking about, but I didn't want to crush her excitement.  I turned to her and said "Tell me it will be OK".  She looked at me quizzically and I said again "Tell me it will be OK.  I trust you, just tell me we are doing the right thing and it will be OK".  She grabbed my hand and said "It will be OK, I promise" and I said "OK baby, we will buy the house".