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!

The post We are holding our breath because we may have found OUR house… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Today we had our tax appointment over at H&R block. I’ve always done our taxes myself online but this year with the moving, the business and all the other financial craziness we decided things were complex enough to pay the $300 to have someone prepare them for us. Taxes only took about one hour 45 minutes and $300 later we were done and our returns are on the way back to us now!

Oh, note to self:

When you find an envelope stuffed with a hand written letter in your mailbox from your landlord saying they’ve changed banks and the envelope also includes several self addressed empty envelopes and bank deposit slips from the landlord don’t assume the landlord wants you to actually send correspondences and rent payments with that new information!

Just because they’ve provided a new address and bank account to you doesn’t mean they actually want you to use it!

Our landlord showed up today on the front door so I gave an earful about how we tried to pay February rent and also that March rent is on the way to them via certified letter. Apparently the mailing address given to us via those self addressed, empty envelopes was… *gasp*… WRONG!

Also, the landlord admitted to having their newest account (that they just recently provided us with deposit slips for) closed. Opps, guess telling your tenants isn’t important huh? Oh, and I recorded the face to face conversation for our records ;-P

So, yeah. We’re not evicted over nonpayment of rent and we are still waiting to see if we’ll get out of this lease. We did look at the red farmhouse over the weekend and liked it, we are not pleased with the lease terms presented to us though.

Turns out that landlord works out of the barn on the property, has an organic vegetable garden they’ll be tending to on the property and they also want a hefty, per pet rental fee in addition to a pet deposit tacked on to the rent. Oh and the house smells of major of pet urine already which worries me and they won’t be replacing the pissed on carpets, just shampooing them. Yuck!

We are still looking for the right home but at least we have managed to get several grownup things checked off the to-do list these days. Hopefully finding a new place is the next task we are able to cross off, luckily we still have some time to shop around.

Crap N is going to be home soon, I need to whip up something for dinner now. Nothing is defrosted yet!

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