So, we did look at a home we liked today! I mentioned it yesterday briefly (I was trying not to get my hopes up). Well today we saw it and loved it. It is actually a home similar to ones we have already toured. The catch is this one is $200 less that those other homes like it AND the owner is offering a lease purchase option.

It is smaller than we would like but it is newer, clean and could possibly be OURS! Here is a photo of the front of it.

The layout has the master bedroom upstairs, loft style overlooking the kitchen.

See that round window at the peak of the roof? It shines light in to the master bedroom.

There is a master bathroom upstairs also, then there are two rooms downstairs in addition to another full bathroom, the living room and the kitchen.

The other great feature we love is the sun room. We’ll use it as an office. Yay we could have an office and a nursery for Tater!

All in all we like it, it’s not the 4 acre farm house we have always dreamed of owning but it is a good first time home that is livable immediately and gives us the possibility to gain some equity for that future purchase of acreage and a farm house.

We are going to get in to hashing out the nitty gritty details with them soon. For those of you just tuning in we couldn’t get financed thanks to some credit report errors and a student loan that is almost back in positive status (1 month to go baby!)… So we’ve been looking at lease/ purchase options in case something fitting comes along. Renting and throwing your money away is just sucky…

Anyway, the gist of it all is that we will have to make a big down payment on the place upon moving in, then we’ll be allowed to lease the home from the owners for a set period of time. During the set period of time we are working like crazy to get our credit in order and to keep it all looking good for the mortgage company, then we will apply for a mortgage to buy the home at the end of the lease term.

The cool thing about a lease purchase option is (a percentage of) the money you pay while renting, plus any down payments made come off the total purchase price of the home once you do get your mortgage and buy the place.

It is nice because then you are leasing a home but not totally throwing your money away since some (or all of the money paid, depending on the contract terms) will come off the total purchase price of the home.

Say we agree to lease/ purchase a home for $112,000 and the owner agrees to apply 100% of our $5,000 down payment towards the purchase of the home, that brings the home’s purchase price to $107,000.

Then if we are given a 12 month lease option and $775 of each month’s rent goes towards the purchase price of the home we’ll be paying another $9,300 towards the total purchase price during the 12 months of leasing.

This knocks the price down even more to a whopping $97,700 when it is time to get that mortgage. Pretty sweet huh?

So, yeah we are pretty happy that the owners like us and are willing to consider the options with us. It is looking like the possibilities are good with this one but it is not set in stone yet.

Oh, we still have no idea about the status of our current lease but are basically just planning to leave anyway. I am almost certain our crappy landlords have voided the lease with their failure to address issues we’ve notified them of. If we need a lawyer to prove it then we will get one!

So yeah, that is the news. Yay for positive prospects (it’s about time)! Oh and my choir buddy, Scott MacIntyre made it through to the top 12 on American Idol. I am so happy for him, he deserves it! Way to go Scott!!

And…. it seems we should be getting ready for those “easter bunnies” afterall. Our rabbit, Maybelle is building her nest and is acting funny. I’ve got the camera ready to capture those little baby bunnies, now who wants one? Seriously I can’t keep them!

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The main reason we are looking to buy is because of the economic state, it is a buyers market for sure. Houses on the market are in abundance, home prices are falling and lots of people are desperately needing to sell the homes they can no longer afford.

Plus with President Obama it is likely we’ll see some type of housing market stimulus attempt, you know to get people buying again and to turn the market around. We suspect this will be most beneficial for those who have not been sucked in to the subprime mortgage mess and whom have not lost homes or even purchased them to begin with.

We have worked very hard to get money for a down payment in the bank. Thanks to employer sponsored 401K plans and roll over options we now have a decent down payment in an IRA ready for a home purchase, we are very pleased about this.

Now we are looking at our home buying options and considering what is truly in our best interest. Obviously we don’t want to remain in a mold filled rental home especially with a baby on the way so we have reinstated our home buying search.

We are looking at unconventional purchasing options at this time. Things like contract sales and owner carry buying options. We are doing this for credit reasons and also because we know somethings are going to change with the new president in regards to the housing market and financing options.

What cracks me up right now is how delusional sellers and agents are right now, they are still trying to be as greedy and shameless a possible even though the number of sellers clearly outnumbers the number of buyers in Evansville, IN.

The place we saw over the weekend was not spectacular by any means, the basement clearly had flooding issues and there were also structural issues on the 2nd floor. The seller made some crazy offer to us that was just a crock and we just laughed about (I don’t want to bore you with the specifics).

What I am wondering is when will people wake up? We are in a recession and greed just doesn’t work anymore. Seriously you selling me your house is NOT doing me any favors. We can rent forever and just keep making interest off that down payment money in the IRA, it’ll be more saved for retirement or whatever. Or we can buy another house, there isn’t a housing shortage you know.

When you have a buyer that is interested how can you honestly make such laughable requests when YOU are the one that is struggling under 2 mortgage payments YOU can’t make? We aren’t struggling financially to pay for our housing because we didn’t get in to an agreement that was impossible to make good on.

When you get someone who is willing to make your payments for you and help YOU out how can you still be so greedy? I know you really want to make your $50,000 profit off the home sale but which is better taking a profit cut or holding out in greed and risking foreclosure?

What kills me is that so many are honestly willing to loose their homes to foreclosure instead of just cutting their losses, learning from the mistake and just selling for what they can get. Those greedy people make me feel like foreclosure is deserved and that we shouldn’t care about their suffering or bail them out, I mean they did it to themselves right?

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