House Hunting Update
Hi! Back again with a house hunting update. If you haven't read the first house hunting blog post, you should, so click here.
Anyways, we haven't had any luck whatsoever and it's starting to get extremely frustrating. Since JT and I are both first time home buyers we had no idea it could be this difficult, but our realtor has been telling us its not usually this complicated.
Back in April we found the perfect house, and we fell in love with it. It was exactly what we wanted: 5 minutes from the beach, a two car garage, in a neighborhood, screened in porch with a backyard lake view, and it didn't require any updates. It was over our budget, so we put in a lower offer. After waiting days to hear back from the seller we learned he wasn't going to come down any lower than the list price. JT and I spent about a week thinking and discussing our finances to see if we could make it work. We made the decision to go through with it but we were worried the house wouldn't appraise for what the seller was asking. We kept our fingers crossed and waited almost 2 weeks for the appraisal (longer than normal). The appraisal ended up coming in 45k under the list price!!! We were SO surprised and disappointed. If you aren't familiar with the home buying process then you should know that the bank only covers what the house appraises for. So, we would have to pay the rest out of pocket and you're pretty much SOL when it comes to resale. The seller still would not come down so we were forced to move on. I was so bummed. I didn't think we could find anything better, but I later learned we were about to spend way more than we should.
Two months later we finally found another house we really liked. It was a lot different than the last house. It was a townhome with almost DOUBLE the space, and it was located walking distance from downtown Hollywood which has a bunch of restaurants and shops (huge for resale). At first we weren't loving the idea of a townhouse, but there were so many perks. It had a two car garage, double the space, awesome location, and the price was wayyy lower than the first house. I thought it was ours. I was SO excited about it. I started planning and pinning. I figured this would go way smoother than the last house. We put in an offer 19k under asking price and the seller countered our offer halfway. We almost accepted it, but then we found out that the complex was about to drop a $6,000 assessment fee that the seller wasn't going to tell us about and we would be forced to pay it. We tried to negotiate with him, but he wasn't going to budge. He ended up bringing the price UP $9,000 so we just gave up. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
This whole process has been playing with my heart strings. We get attached, then we get let down, we get attached, then we get let down again. I never thought it would drag on this long. I thought we would for sure have a house right now, but I guess everything happens for a reason. One thing we learned was that there really is hope of finding something better. It may not be exactly what we thought we wanted but sometimes there's more pros than cons and you realize you can make it work. We are still on the look out, so send all your positive vibes our way!! We are hoping something will pop up soon.
Stay tuned!
