for Diana

So it turns out I'm not that much of a "blogger". We found a house and we loved it, made an offer on it and our offer got accepted! It was very exciting and kind of overwhelming.

Its an older town house (no dues!) and on the corner lot. It needed a lot of work - which I'm so thankful bf is handy. I've painted one of our two bathrooms with the thought that it might inspire me to paint the rest of the house. Turns out it didn't and I just come home exhausted and all I want to do is hang out with my family. Which is most likely why I never got any blogs posted.

Here is our house, Diana. I love it. E already wants a bigger nicer house. But I'm a happy momma. I know that someday we'll make more money and be able to provide more for our family. Until then, I'm content right where I am.

I do want to go to grad school out of state someday - and I don't want to part with our first house ever. I'm already emotionally attached and invested.

But admittedly I am no housekeeper. I'd love to have a house warming party but that would require me to CLEAN and straighten and organize. Did I mention that I come home tired everyday?

I do a little here and there but our two girls, especially the two year old, always seem to make a mess as I'm cleaning.

On some magical day when my whole house is clean and I've decorated and painted every nook and cranny - I'll take a photo to document it. Because, chances are, it won't stay that way for long...

I am so judgmental

I failed to mention how judgmental I am. So our Realtor is actually pretty kick-ass. I have no idea what I was thinking. She is very patient with us, and very kind. I think initially I read her wrong. I can admit that I'm wrong from time-to-time, can't I?

So we've looked at SEVERAL houses so far. Mmm, maybe around 20. And no such luck thus far. We are looking at two more tomorrow, and a couple more on Sunday. Wish us luck!!! Seriously.

Because, we just discovered from our landlord that he wants us out by the end of May. Yeah. Totally sucks. Not that I was to spend another (*expletive*) moment in this Hell-hole called Fairview. But. It would've been nice to have some leisurely time moving in and renovating and making repairs. A little dash of paint here. A little crown molding there. It also would've been nice to get a better deal on a house, so buying near the end of summer when people are really desperate to sell their house.

It turns out starter homes are going pretty fast these days. And there are a number of reasons why. First, Obama passed a first time home buyer tax credit (score!) That article tickled my fancy. Apparently some people thought they could take the tax credit now...as in claim it on their '08 income taxes. Sorry folks, it doesn't work that way.

Another reason, and this one irritates me: is that people are buying them and flipping them. Seriously irritating. Considering we'd like to BUY a starter home and LIVE in it. (And "they" say you should stay in it for at least five years.)

Case in point: we look at a couple different houses with our Realtor. We aren't very impressed with some of the first houses she shows us, until we look at house close to our daughter's school. But it isn't just the location. It had a huge, MASSIVE master bedroom. It was a little creepy because it was an "estate sale". Which means its on sale because the person who owned it passed away. Nevertheless, we fell in love with the place. There was a nice yard, the neighbors seemed friendly. There was a giant master bedroom to accommodate our giant king size bed. The place needed a lot of work. It needed lots of new appliances, new carpet, new cabinetry. It didn't matter to us. We would've bought it in a heartbeat. But we found out that someone/some people had put an offer on it the night before we looked at it. We were disappointed. We left thinking, "that was a good exercise to go through. there will be more houses out there. there will be more good deals out there just like that one."

Turns out those good deals don't stay on the market for very long. You've gotta move quickly if you want something badly enough.

We're going to look at some houses slightly out of our price range tomorrow. Turns out I'd rather be close to daughter's school. I don't really care about good deals. I should, but bf is the bread winner. For now, anyways. It is a scary economy. Commuting is such a drag, though. And to have two little ones in school and daycare, and having to shuffle back and forth between them, and work. Oy vey. What I would give to have a 20 minute commute in the morning. I'm not good at being on time to anything, but having to get munchkins dressed and out the door in the morning is not exactly easy. Plus, the after-work commute. Most times we don't get home until 6 and don't get to eat dinner until 7, then they just have to go to bed. And I'd like to spend SOME time with them. THAT is what is most important to me.

Then I remind myself we live in Fairview. And we lived in Spenard. Holy crap, what I would give for a yard! Our oldest daughter was commenting on how beautiful the weather has been lately and "wouldn't it be so nice to play outside? isn't this just a wonderful day to play in the yard?" Yeah. Sure. The yard in front of our four-plex is covered with cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and various forms of garbage that has weathered away in the snow. We need to get the F outta here. I'm pretty sure our next door neighbor is a drug dealer. Our neighbors upstairs has a disabled child that I'm sure gets neglected because the mom is always high. And the other neighbor kitty corner to us uses the "N" word and drinks beer before 5 pm.

Its a rough life out there, I guess.

Stay tuned on the house hunting! I'm not going to give up just yet! And I don't want to couch surf at my parent's house, either.

SO...

I know its been a month since I've posted. Life's been pretty hectic lately, and work has definitely been WORK.

Anyhow, just to let you know we (bf and I) haven't made any real progress on the home buying front.

Shamefully, we are crawling back to my parent's real estate agent. Who was also my brothers' real estate agent. Why? Our Loan Officer had referred us to a Real Estate Agent who was very iffy. He had initially sent bf emails and seemed (somewhat) helpful. Bf let him know our loan amount and what we were looking for. Then he sent another email asking what we were looking for.

My guess, and I could be wrong...is we're kinda small potatoes since we are just getting a starter home. Again, I could be wrong. But we aren't exactly looking to buy a $300K house. A smaller loan/cheaper house= smaller piece of the pie for the real estate agent.

So, we're going back to the tried and true. I would think with the kind of market our economy is in, real estate agents would be working a little harder to get clients. They'd put in a little extra effort.

According to the Re-Max Properties Alaska website - right now - there are 2,069 homes on the market in Anchorage.

That is a lot. When I took the HomeChoice class in January, there was about half that on the market. News update: this is good if you are in the market to buy a house. More homes on the market means lower prices! AND - houses are staying on the market longer. Another good thing for home buyers. Yet no one is willing to admit it is a buyers market in Anchorage. (Just watch, it will be very soon.)

Even KTUU agrees, now is a good time to buy. (That is, of course, if you have a credit score of at least 750, bf reminds me. Lucky me.) The whole reason the housing market crashed in the Lower 48 was due to loose regulations on home loans. So they're getting stricter.

SO...

I emailed the real estate agent I had originally did NOT want to work with. But, I was proven wrong. Relationships do matter.

I did let her know that we need to get serious at looking. Our lease is up next month. I've got some money tied up in a CD that I'll have access to in May. And we wanted to see if prices would go down. And they have. But it isn't a good idea to wait too long. Because we'd still be throwing money away in rent.

I'll do a better job of posting. And I'll let you know how the serious house hunting goes.

refer refer refer

When people discover that you are in the market to buy a house, everyone wants to tell you about their home buying experience. I liken this to being pregnant and everyone wanting to share their pregnancy stories and experiences. Sometimes its useful and informative, and other times, its just plain annoying.

Now, my bf and I did decide to go with my parents loan officer, and truthfully, it turned out to be a good thing. As I mentioned before, my credit stinks (thanks to my huge student loans and thanks to my parents) but I was able to get on the mortgage loan without it effecting the interest rate or the amount we can borrow. Which lets you know that bf has an almost flawless credit history and score (nerd) and makes pretty good dough (sugar daddy). If we had decided to try and get a loan through another lender, they could've made it a more rigorous process had they wanted to. But since the loan officer knew my parents, and like and respect my parents (despite the fact they don't pay my student loans on time) she made it a fairly painless process to go through.

However, we decided to not go with my parents (and practically my whole family's) real estate agent. Why? I simply don't like her. I'm sure she's a very nice person, and a hard worker, but there's just something about her I don't like. All of these folks in this kind of business are sales people. They will try to push you to get a bigger loan, or buy more of a house than you can realistically afford. (Did you watch the national news when there was a big housing crash in the Lower 48? It was due to not enough rules and regulations on lending. Too many lenders were handing out risky loans to people even though they didn't have enough assets, or income, or had bad credit, or by convincing people they could afford a much more expensive home then they could afford.)

Loan originators get 1% of a home loan from the buyer. Real estate agents get 6% from the seller. Which may not sound like much, but when you're talking homes in the hundreds of thousands it can amount to a LOT of money.

The housing crash that happened in the Lower 48 happened with lenders such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happened due to lack of oversight. Those lenders were handing out home loans to less than ideal candidates, and convincing people that they could buy more than they could afford. One of the ways they convinced people to get home loans was with a loan called an ARM (an Adjustable Rate Mortgage) which is just that. The loan rates change. If you are planning on owning a home for a short period of time, you could get a pretty sweet interest rate. But that rate balloons dramatically over time. And then you could find yourself with an expensive home with a huge interest rate.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) the housing crash hasn't happened in Alaska (yet.) Condos are decreasing in value in Anchorage by about 10%. Condos could be a great first home. Not exactly for us, since we have kids and want to have a yard. I'm especially sick of having neighbors that I have to share common areas with. Equity, the value of your home, grows quicker when you own a house because you also own the land. If you are paying 700-900 a month in rent, you could easily buy a condo and pay the same amount. (Another down side of owning a condo is having to pay "dues" and that is to pay for various costs depending on the building, but covers the basics such as snow removal...basic grounds maintenance like mowing.) Regardless, you still own it.

We're hoping there will be more homes on the market in late spring/early summer and more homes mean more desperate sellers.

We came up with how much we can afford in terms of a monthly mortgage payment, figured out our interest rate, and factored in how much of a down payment we are able to make - THEN figured out the loan amount.

But back to my advise about loan originators and real estate agents. You have every right in the world to ask them their credentials. Ask them how long they have been in the business, how many homes they've sold/how many loans they've approved. Ask for references. The thing is, buying a home should be a positive experience. Don't go with somebody just because your best friends, mother's, sister's boyfriend's niece's daughter-in-laws said they would get you a good deal (it just ain't true) or just because they had a positive experience and you were able to get the home of your dreams.

For starters, everyone's situation is different. I believe it to be incredibly important to own your own home. When you rent, you are honestly throwing your money away. When you own your own home, it is all yours. Imagine renting a car for the rest of your life. Why would anyone want to do something like that? You're always going to need a car to get from place to place. You might as well own one. Same goes for a home. It makes no sense to rent. And when you don't want it anymore, or you want a new one or a different one, you can sell it and you could get the money back that you put into it, or if you've owned it for some time, you could even get more. (You should be able to stay in your home for at least five years before selling.) Homes and land will always increase in value over time. (My analogies of cars and homes don't always apply with one another, because as soon as you drive a car off the lot it loses value.)

I'm losing focus. Its been awhile since I posted something, I know. I work full time, and I have two little girls that keep me pretty busy. My job can be emotionally draining at times. Its humbling, and it does have plenty of rewards. One being I am reminded on a daily basis how FORTUNATE I am. There are people out there that are just barely getting by. I drive by Bean's Cafe everyday and see the groups congregating there get larger and larger. A homeless relative recently passed away, and even though he could never hold down a job and was an alcoholic, he was still a person. He spent much of his life in and out of jail and on the streets. What I know, is that many people do not choose the situation that they are in. And not enough people in the world care or are concerned about whether or not people have enough food to eat, or have enough money to heat their homes. You could be cynical and think that they are not good at managing their own money. But it is not our job to tell people how to spend their money. And it does not diminish the fact that people should not be going hungry or going without heat.

Success!

Well, good news, folks! We were approved for a loan! It wasn't that much of a surprise, I suppose. We were a little unsure if my bad credit history and my having recently been unemployed would effect our interest rate. It didn't. And we're going to both be on the mortgage! It helped that I have some assets on hand to go towards a down payment on a home.

But here are some basic things you will need to get a home loan:

-most recent pay stub (when you find a home and want to make an offer, you'll need to provide another one)
-bank statements for the past two months
-W2s for the past two years
-copies of your taxes for the past two years

You don't need to provide them all at once, but know that eventually you'll need to provide those essential documents.

Gather all of those materials before making an appointment with a loan officer. We are getting our mortgage loan through Alaska USA.

At your appointment they will do a credit check. You should regularly check your credit score, especially if you are wanting to buy a home soon. If your credit score is below 680, it may be more difficult getting approved. If you regularly keep track of your credit score, and you want to improve your credit score, that generally takes 6 months. You can use MyFico.com free for a one time use and that provides one of the three credit bureau's scores. You can also check out FreeAnnualCreditReport.com - that is free for one time a year and includes all three credit reports.

Anyhow, be ready to answer some personal questions about your finances. If I were to try and get a loan on my own I would've had to go through a more rigorous process of having to explain why my credit score is so low. (Mom and dad promised to pay my student loans and since its in my name, it doesn't effect their score if they decide to pay late. Thanks a lot, mom and dad.)

I know this is all fairly basic information, but it can be scary getting approved for a loan. You should have at least three different lines of credit open and active. That means credit cards, a car loan, in my case student loans...

Interest rates are really good right now. 5%. You could speculate on whether or not they'll decrease even more, and they probably will eventually, but then again you could just be waiting for the best interest rate and you'll still be throwing your $$$ away in the process.

Oh! And thanks to our newly elected (rockin') President Barack Obama, first time home buyers who buy a home THIS YEAR (1/09 - 12/09) will get a tax credit up to $8,000. But your annual gross income has to be less than $75,000 or $150,000 for married couples.

So, hold down a job for a couple years, save up some dough...and you could get your first place! I'm going to be using those fatty PFDs and energy rebate checks we got last year towards the down payment.

Ok kids, I'm going to turn out for today. The next step for us is to start "shopping" for houses! Start at places like the Alaska MLS website and Craigslist to take a look at places you think you might be able to afford.

We're going to get an FHA loan (first time home buyer) and a HUD 184 (loan program for Alaska Natives and American Indians.) I'll explain more tomorrow.

Now we get to start doing the fun stuff: looking at houses!!!

I am SO SICK of renting!

This is my very first entry on a very exciting home buying process. And I'd like to start off with letting you know that I just called the APD to complain about my upstairs neighbors. It is currently just after 1 o'clock in the morning on a Thursday.

My bf and I let them know, on several occasions that their music is too loud. I realized, not too shortly after we moved into this fourplex (in Fairview) is that none - and I mean NONE of our neighbors work.

This is apartment number 3 in the past two years that I have put up with. Mind you, I do know, and did know, that living in Fairview would have its downsides. Having to deal with neighbors that don't have jobs is just one of the many.

The apartment we lived prior to this one was in lovely Spenard. (I have no idea why in the world why I wanted to live in Spenard...or why anyone in their right mind would want to live in Spenard. But we did.) And needless to say it was a less than savory experience. Actually, the neighbors we have in Fairview are far worse than the ones in Spenard. Anyhow, back to Spenard. We rented a duplex of sorts, it was originally a single family house that was turned into a duplex. The owner lived in the downstairs unit. So, let's call her "The Hobbit". The Hobbit, would, on occasion, turn the hot water off to save money. That's right, no hot water. I would have to call to let her know that we needed to bathe or wash dishes or laundry. What we paid in rent pretty much covered her monthly mortgage payment I'm assuming. I don't really have anything left to complain about living in Spenard other than renting from the Hobbit. Who was an incredibly creepy woman. She did not work or have a job either, and when she spoke to you, she was always looking at you at the corners of her eyes. (And I had this awful feeling that she was always going through our apartment when we weren't there.)

Before life in Hobbitlandia, we had a quaint little apartment in Turnagain. Turnagain. I'm not entirely certain what my obession with living in Turnagain is all about, but I do want to live there again. Despite all of the drawbacks of living at Brookside, it will always have a special place in my heart simply because it was my very first apartment with my daughter that I got all on my own. I felt so proud convincing the landlords to renovate the kitchen before we moved in. It was this lovely tucked away apartment building nestled in the woods of Turnagain. The first night we spent in our first apartment with freshly painted white walls was nice and quiet. Then, the next morning, I heard loud yelling, that went something like this, "She's not my f*cking kid!" at like, 8 o'clock in the morning. And I thought to myself, "Ahhh, so that's the kind of apartment I'm living in." Not too many months later, that same lady who was screaming about somebody's kid who wasn't hers, allowed her children to take a bath and splash water all over the bathroom floor. That same night her children happily splashed water all over their bathroom floor...it made its way conveniently into my bathroom ceiling and dripped over the toilet for a week. You see, the plumbing in that building was very old (I should've known). And next time, the upstairs neighbors' kids played with the toilet and clogged it up. This time, it didn't go into our bathroom, it went into my bedroom closet and all over my dry cleaning and piles of my books. All ruined. And the landlords were very nonplused about the whole situation...pretending nothing like that had ever happened. The upstairs neighbors later confessed to us that indeed it does happen, and the previous tenants moved out for the very reason we did. I think we lasted about 5 months in that place.

Well, it is now 1:30 in the morning. APD showed up and got them to turn their music off. I have no bad feelings over calling them. I've already lost sleep. I actually have a job, and my daughters actually have school in the morning. Correction, we have work and school to go to in a matter of hours.

I'd like to end on a happy note though: bf and I are meeting with the loan officer tomorrow. I am a little scared and a little nervous. Honestly, my credit isn't the greatest, I earn a nonprofit wage, and I was most recently unemployed for almost an entire year. But we are going to buy a house. Even if its a zero lot line, a townhouse, or Godforbid, a condo. For the past three years that we've been renting, all three places were around $1,000/month. Three years at a $1,000 a month is (drum roll please....) $36,000. That is not including the deposit and moving expenses which can really add up. $36,000 completely gone. Money which could have gone towards something that could be building equity.

Enough already, I said I'd end on a happy note.

Meeting with the loan officer tomorrow. I've already taken the HomeChoice class offered by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. If you are thinking about buying a new home, this is a great class to get started. Even if you think you understand the home buying process, you will get something out of it - a certificate saying you took the class and $200 off closing costs. (Closing costs are uncommonly rare at the moment, people are wanting to sell so in most cases the seller is offering to pay all or a portion of the closing costs.)

But I will divulge more about that later. I have an undergrad degree in Business Adminstration, I'm almost positive I took a Real Estate class. But this is about my personal experience in finding and buying a starter home in Anchorage. And hopefully some of my tips and information can help you out, too. (I'll be sure to let you know how tomorrow goes! Keep your fingers crossed for me!)