Final House?

In case some of you haven't read the comments from our last post, we found out last week that there was multiple offers on house #3. We submitted our best and final and were supposed to hear back a week ago. Over the weekend the bank (it's bank owned) asked some questions, but we still haven't heard yet if they are accepting our offer or not.

But don't worry too much. Monday we found House #4. We really like this house, in fact maybe more than all the rest of them. The floor plan is really nice, with a big great room downstairs and a huge loft upstairs. It has a lot of great windows and natural light. After we looked at it Michelle made the comment that the house made her happy. It is a corner lot and has a big backyard (well by AZ standards).

After viewing it we made an offer on it. The seller made a counter offer yesterday and we are accepting it. We are under contract and now have to go through the inspection and closing, but with luck in mid-April we will be in our first home! We are very excited. Below are some pictures pulled from the listing.


Front of the House.

Master Bath.

Kitchen

Backyard.

House Buying Update (House Number 3)

Since I promised a post on Tuesday about our search for a house, it probably is time to give you, our faithful blog readers, an update.

We have had to deal with some unexpected drama, and it has changed what we thought was going to be our house. Last week we walked away from house numero dos and made an offer on our backup house (pictured above) because there was problem with the type of loan that we needed to use. Last Sunday the sellers contacted our realtor with a deal that would let us buy their house. We talked it over and verbally agreed to the terms. Basically the sellers were going to pay all the closing cost, so that the out of pocket costs for us would be the same as the original deal.

Tuesday when we started to get things in writing, we soon discovered what we had agreed to was not what the sellers were going to do. We then spent most of this week going back and forth trying to agree on all the terms. By Friday we decided that it was not going to work out and canceled our contract.

So we reactivated our offer on the backup house, and are now waiting to hear back on house number three! We think they are going to accept our offer, and since we can do an FHA loan we shouldn't have any problem with the loan. But as we have found out with this process, you never know what will happen.

Valentine's Day

We interrupt our house hunting posts (come back tomorrow for more) with a post about our Valentine's Day. I decided to treat Michelle to a fancy dinner. I figured out the menu: new york strip steak, sweet onion potatoes au gratin, grilled asparagus, and sparkling cider. I did all the shopping and all the cooking. I did a good job cooking, but appreciate the assistance with knowing when the onions were caramelized (thanks Michelle!). I had to scramble a little when I ran out of propane and the steaks were only half way done, but was saved by a quick transfer to the grill pan. It was a very tasting dinner.

For dessert I wanted to replicate a dish I saw on the Food Network's Worst Cooks in America show. I saw them make liquid center chocolate tortes with a salted caramel sauce and caramelized bananas. I figured if the worst cooks in America could do it, I could. The one problem with the recipe was it required a creme brulee torch to caramelize the bananas. I figured this was a good chance to gain a new tool and had to buy me a propane torch! The recipe turned out to be a little challenging, but in the end it turned out really good. Michelle especially liked the caramel sauce!!!
"Honey, I have to buy a new tool for your Valentine!"

Caramelizing the bananas.

The finished dessert.

Yummy!

House number dos :)

Well, here she is. Our current offered house....ain't she a beaut? We sure think so. We are 90% sure that we are going to buy it--our offer is in and we are ironing out a few kinks with the financing/closing dates etc. If we end up getting it, we are going to close in 2 weeks! Isn't that nuts? I am still in shock. Tomorrow we should find out how things are going for sure, so we will keep you posted!

Down, but not beaten

Hey there blog fans, we just found out that the bank took another offer on the house. Boo. We aren't super surprised, we saw a listing for another house with the same layout for 130,000....so we are thinking someone must have been closer to that than we were. We are bummed because we really liked the house, but we are moving on :) We are heading out Monday to look at one that we saw last week and then a few new listings. Thanks for all the support!

Buying a Home?

If you would have asked me two weeks ago when we would buy a home I probably would have said in a couple of years; but if you asked me that today, I would say hopefully tomorrow!

Things have moved quickly. First I talked to a friend and found out houses in the Queen Creek area are going for cheap. Then I called another friend that I knew did something with real estate, only to find out he is a broker. He then set me up with an agent and loan broker. In the mean time Michelle and I searched all over the Internet looking for the right house. Yesterday we looked at some houses, but were overwhelmed with all the work they needed to be move in ready. And finally today we found one house we really love and 3 more that can work as backups.

We plan on making an offer on our first choice tomorrow. It currently has two offers on it and they are going to take the best offer after tomorrow. With luck it will be ours!!!

Feeling pretty proud....

This year in our primary we are making a big push for the kids to learn the articles of faith. Our Stake always does an Articles of Faith Fireside for the senior primary kids, but a lot of the scriptures for this year are articles, so we thought it would be good for all the kids to learn as many as possible. We decided to do a punch card for the kids to help keep track of what they have learned. With lots of help from a friend in the ward, I finally put the scrapbooking program I have to good use. I am super happy with the end result, and I may even be talked into doing some other fun things with it :)