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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Wanted to take some time to give you the weeks highlights… For starters, we found Boner in Maybelle’s section of the rabbit cage earlier this week. Boner + Maybelle = little rabbit babies= craptastic!

Somehow he managed to dislodge the wire cage separator that is his floor and he squeezed down there to “hug” and cuddle with her. Now we are watching for rabbit pregnancy signs and Boner has been migrated to his own homemade rabbit hutch.

She is surely pregnant since female bunnies “release an egg after being exposed to the male” unlike a human woman’s ovulation cycle. Additionally she may even be carrying multiple litters since they were together for so long and we didn’t know about it.

Looks like she’ll have those babies in about 30-34 days if she is indeed pregnant and we can expect anywhere from 1-16 babies depending on her actual breed and size (which we aren’t sure about) and we’ll have to keep each of those babies separate from each other (since sexing young bunnies is difficult) shortly after birth to avoid more unwanted pregnancies. They can start to breed as early as 12 week old! Like I said, super craptastic huh?

Our Eureka Altima Vacuum (that we got a little over a year ago) melted itself this week rendering it completely useless now. We’ve contacted Eureka about the apparent product defect and are awaiting a response. We may have to buy a new vacuum soon…

The packing and home hunting madness has begun! Still have not heard from the mortgage people about our application but we are looking at both rentals and possible purchases right now to cover all bases.

Next month is my birthday and we are celebrating by taking another trip to Tennessee to see our midwife, Pamela, at The Farm. I am so obviously pregnant now and can’t really believe I could deliver Tater in as little as 18 weeks. I’ve got some major tailbone pain and also some major pelvic pressure from my growing bump, other than the growing pains I feel good.

Oh, if you are interested in reading more about home birth stuff let me know, I just read two really great articles in Mothering magazine that I scanned and can email you if you want!

Tater is still as active as usual, I even got a cool video of my belly jiggling around as a result of her kicks and punches for the sake of memories, fun!

Our bedding set for Tater just shipped so we are anxiously waiting for it to arrive via UPS and can’t wait to see it! We got our wishlists updated for everyone who has been hounding us (see the links on the side bar of this page under the baby widget), now we just really need to get busy with moving before she comes!

Oh and nope, we still have no name ideas.

We are looking at more rental and contract purchase homes this weekend in addition to doing our grocery shopping and Wii Playing, we also plan to pack, clean and organize like crazy!

What does your weekend have in store?

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The showing was fairly quick and cordial so it was no huge inconvenience for me (other than having to wrangle the animals and clean the place). Yesterday we got a call from the landlords office to schedule another showing for this week, on Friday.

Then N calls me and says he just talked to J, our landlord, and it seems like the house is going to sell. The couple that came through last week made an offer on the house so it looks like we may not have to show it much more once it all becomes official.

Our lease is still valid through August so the new owners will have to let us stay till the end of our contract but it looks like ball will be rolling come August regardless of job prospects! We will be moving from this rental and hopefully to a new town where N is making more, we will buy a home, settle down and perhaps have a baby. Oh, yeah a wedding might fit in there somewhere but if it doesn’t we’re legally tied anyway.

Speaking of moving, we are toying with the idea of RVing the pets and ourselves to our new location when it is time to move. I am set on getting a beater RV, conversion van or similar that we can drive with the animals in it. We will sleep in camp grounds or parking lots on our way and it will be quite the journey! I’ll be blogging the experience of course and I expect it will be quite the adventure!

So we are looking for an RV that we can buy for under $2300, it will cost about $2300 to rent an RV and make the drive so I figure if we can buy something that will get us there that we will also own once it is all said and done it is a better investment! Here are some of the options we have found on craigslist phoenix, what do you think?

LOL… I love this one simply for the cow spots. I love cows so this is right up my alley!

Here is a cheap 1976 Ford Motor Home N found online:

The options are endless!

So, what do you think? Know any insider tips on buying an RV/ Motor home? Got one you want to donate or perhaps some money for the cause? He, he..

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