And We're Waiting...

Hey guys- I wish I could write a great update stating how much we have moved forward with our offer..

But unfortunately I can't- I don't want to mislead or lie to you guys!

I know nothing more since my last update.  We are still waiting on rejection, acceptance or a counter   on our offer. This part can  be really frustrating because you are in limbo- and nobody wants to be there in any situation- but 'tis the nature of a short sale.

We just have to continue to wait and weigh our options. We have done everything we can do, and are still looking everyday to see if there are any other houses that we would like to see.  So far nothing can compare to the value of the house we have made the offer on.

So all we can do is hope this isn't a colossal waste of time.  But  we are being smart about this short sale and are continually looking to make sure we are not passing up any other houses we really like.

It's always a balancing act.  How long do you wait, how important is each feature of a home, what are you willing to compromise on? As I said before this whole process can be tricky, but hopefully the end result will be... Home Sweet Home! 

Ready, Set... Wait...

It's the waiting game...

Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

We received a weekly email update on the status of our offer.  It said the average short sale takes 3-5 months to complete.  (I knew this was coming.)

We have been told there is a one week delay on processing our offer while we wait for lender approval or a counter offer. (That's why they say short sales should really be called long sales-haha real estate joke.)

So the choice is up to us since our offer technically expires Tuesday- we can choose to leave our offer in the pool or we can withdraw our offer and look for another house. We can play the game or move on.

We have looked at the houses currently on the market and decided there isn't really anything that we want to look at right now- so we will keep our offer right now and see what we find out next Monday.

The most important thing you can do in this situation is to keep your eye on the market to see if anything else comes available that you want to see.  But if you decide to make an offer on another home be certain you withdraw your first offer.  You DO NOT want to have two accepted offers.  Compare the houses to the house you have your offer in on  and see how they stack up to each other.  If there is a better option you may want to withdraw your offer and avoid the waiting game.

For us right now I guess we are just going to get ready for an intense waiting game!

It's a tricky thing...

Good news!

We saw two houses over the weekend!  We scheduled to see one and went to an open house for another.  Both houses are short sales.  Which could be a really good thing because we can get a really good deal- but from all I have heard they can be a little tricky and quite a headache! (Do I really want to take that on.... the answer is... Sure, why not- I'm all about getting a deal!)

So what exactly is a short sale?  Let me try to explain this in normal terms.  Essentially a short sale is when the bank agrees to sell the property for less then what is owed on the property.  It is a way to avoid foreclosure for the seller and the bank. This means you can get a really good deal on a house but the process is a bit more complicated and slower because more people are involved (buyer, bank and seller).  And I'll let you know what else I find out if we move forward with either of these properties.

Both houses we toured needed a little bit of work- but nothing that I am not willing to take on- a little scrubbing, painting, steam cleaning- these are projects I can handle!

The first house we saw was the open house.  It was attractive, great curb appeal, but small. I think if we choose that house we would only stay there for maybe three years and then move again because we would just run out of room.

We really liked the second house- it has everything we were looking for. It's in an area we like and the neighborhood seemed very family friendly and inviting. It's big enough that we could stay for a while and I would not feel that we need to move to accommodate a growing family.  We decided to put an offer in on this house!!  OMG!!  Super exciting and a little bit scary!

We put an on offer in on this house on Tuesday morning... since this a short sale we gave them a week to respond to the offer- which is much longer than you would give in a conventional offer (24 hours normally).  We haven't heard anything back yet but we will see what happens next week.  Do we continue the hunt or begin the closing process!!!  I will keep you posted....