Housing Update: The Overview

It's true. Buying a house involves jumping through hoops. So many hoops, in fact, that I am devoting some time to updating folks on the whole process. But first, I wanted to give people an overview.
We decided we wanted a house. We're tired of living in tiny rented spaces, where we have to ask permission to get pets or put nails in the wall. We wanted a yard to grow veggies and raise chickens, as well as the ability to take a sledgehammer to walls if we so choose.

After the market fell off the map, we decided to really go for the bottom of the barrel houses - that is, we were looking at houses $60k and below. We were going for an FHA loan, which is a big pain the neck for all concerned - so when a bank has the option of accepting our offer or a conventional loan offer, we would loose. I spent many many hours looking on line at potential houses, and then driving by them, sometimes looking in the windows. This isn't as creepy as it sounds - we've been looking at foreclosed houses. Then my very patient realtor and I looked at many many houses. Many bad houses. Houses that probably housed cottage industries of meth production. Houses with doors to nowhere, houses without stairs (but with multiple floors), houses with that looked like they were designed by 10-year old boys. Houses with thriving mold colonies, houses in which many many cats lived and died. Crummy houses in great neighborhoods, great houses in terrifying neighborhoods. Houses with all the copper stolen, houses with squatters (It's like trying to buy a haunted house, although the squatter did oblige us and leave out the window when we came in). And we put offers on a bunch of houses. We kept getting outbid by conventional loaners. Finally, we put an offer on a house that no one else wanted. Is that a bad sign?

The seller (aka: a giant bank corporation) and I went back and forth on the price, which seemed akin to quibbling about the arrangement of the deck furniture on the Titantic. We setteled on a price. I got a contractor in there to look at what needed to be fixed, and we applied for a rehab loan. Minor things, such as the roof, siding, ceiling, walls, plumbing, and electrical needed some tlc. (I've discovered that "Needs TLC" is real estate speak for Crap-House). I got my mortgage in line (which is a whole novel by itself), and we were all ready to close. I'm glossing over a bunch of details, and the many times I jammed a pen in my eyeball (my go-to measure for when I'm stressed). Then the title company realized (even though I had told them this months ago) that city needs to inspect the house before it can be sold.

This update is going to have to contine into the next posting, because my ball-point pen is getting dangerous close to my eyeball. Stay tuned.