The House...

...of my dreams? Well, it is not quite there, but it is a house, a big, affordable house, in the neighborhood we want to live in, and it is almost ours... Dreamy enough for me :)... We saw it last Saturday, put our bid on it on Labor Day (last Monday) and the bid was submitted and accepted by the next day. After the seller (bank) made their addendum and we signed it, the bank accepted our bid!!! We had the inspection today to make sure the pest and roof damage was not over the amount we stated in our Conditions and it was all good! So all we are waiting on now is for the lender to approve an FHA loan on the house (our credit is pre-approved for about 20k more than our bid was for but I guess the house has to be too) and we will be good to go! Our close date is set for October 1st if all goes to plan! I am really excited! It is 4 bed 2 bath on a corner lot (one side of the back yard on kind of a busy street but the front of the house is on the side street) it is 1,378 sq ft of fixer upper, but it could be ours in less than a month. Toby and Josh already have big plans for building a cinderblock wall along the main street side as a DIY project (I must admit the thought scares me a bit). My main goal is to get the kitchen and bathrooms up to par and then put in flooring, pergo or carpet, I'm not sure... Since we are only putting 3% down (when we were expecting to have to put 10% down and therefore have that much ready) we ar going to use the rest of the money to fix it up and pick up some (nice) second hand appliances. There are many people who are selling their barely used stuff (like the newer models that we like) for less than half of what they bought them for less than a year ago. We have already had someone offer us a never used energy star oven and microwave for $200, but since they are the wall mounted kind I would have to redo the kitchen when I want to put them in (the cabnits are falling down, so if we have the money, that will be the first room to get fixed anyways). The roof is in much better shape than we thought, it only needs 1 spot patched and then we have to get a certification to get the FHA loan. Also the front bathroom needs a new sink and the back need a new shower drop in liner. We will probably not got crazy on these two things, just the basics so they are useable. Since our married friends Josh and Kelly will be renting from us for about a year, we will probably set aside some of that money to redo all the siding on the outside of the house so it doesn't look any more patched up than it already does (dry rot, everybody's got it), but that will be a project for next year. For now all we need to do is seal up the windows with caulk so that moisture does not get inside. I'm really excited (in case you didn't notice)! We are putting this in God's hands (even though our imaginations already have us living in this house)... Wehouses fall through before our loan was pre-approved, so we know what it is to get a little disappointed, however this is the furthest we have gone in the process, so we are praying everything else goes well... Soon enough we could all be neighbors!