UNDER. CONTRACT.

Well folks, we (sort of) did it.  We are officially under contract and moving right along towards owning our own home.

We've actually been under contract for a little over a month but with a lot of details and loose ends to tie up, we wanted to wait until we knew more and had more details worked out to let everyone know.

So to bring you up to speed as quickly as possible, here's the deal:

The Five Ws
Who: Well, Mike and me, I suppose
What:  A 4 bed, 3 bath two story condo (more commonly known as a duplex down)
Where:  The north edge of Andersonville, about 2 miles north of where we live now, a very family-oriented, Swedish and historical "burrow" here in Chicago
When:  ASAP!  We went under contract February 11th but closing could take anywhere from 3-9 months (it's a short sale)
Why:  After a lot of disappointment and dissatisfaction with the houses we were seeing, we decided to pursue the condo market in the city.  We found this place only the second time we were out hunting in the city and it was on the market for only 2 days when we snagged it up.  FINALLY, we got to people the people we've hated time and time again when we lose a battle to go under contract! 

We absolutely adore the place and have made it through several major hurdles of the process--we've gone through our attorney and inspection period (inspection was top notch with no major concerns from our inspector) and we've been approved for our mortgage (though we are waiting until we're a bit further along to actually go through the application process, as there are time limits on our acceptance and since we have no idea of a closing date, we don't want to apply and then have that mortgage expire).

For those of you who may not be familiar with short sales, here is the short to-do as I understand it...when an owner is no longer able to pay their mortgage, a property will go into short sale before the full foreclosure process begins (when a home has been foreclosed upon completely, the bank owns the property and becomes the party responsible for selling it).  It's really the "limbo" stage.  The owners are still considered the "sellers" but the bank must approve the selling price, as the selling price is often much less than what the owners owe on the house.  For example, a person might buy a $500,000 property with 10% down, thus having a $450,000 mortgage.  Let's say this person loses their job or has a catastrophic medical bill to pay and can no longer pay their mortgage (this is when I hear Suze Orman saying OVER AND OVER AND OVER again how important it is to have 6 months worth of rent/mortgage and bills in an emergency fund but I digress...).  Let's say they've now got about $400,000 left of their mortgage.  When in short sale, they can list and sell that property for much less than they owe (let's say $300,000) but the bank must approve that price.  Since the bank would rather cut their losses early and make out with as much cash as they can (because the foreclosure price is almost always MUCH less than they can get during a short sale), short sales can be great investments, but they are notoriously slow and epically frustrating to work with.

So, right now, our offer has been submitted to the bank and we are waiting to hear back from them--and it pretty much boils down to waiting for a no, a counteroffer or an acceptance of our offer.

We would welcome and appreciate any prayers and good thoughts sent our way.  We are so very, very hopeful that this will work out for us and have all our fingers and toes crossed!

♥H&M

Weeeeeeee're Back

Hi Everybody!

It's been almost exactly nine months since I last posted about our home buying adventure.  My track record with this blogging thing is really turning out to be quite similar to my journal-keeping track record.

On a positive note, there is so little to report that I can probably sum it up in about 1 sentence:

We did not find a house before the home buyer tax credit expired 4/30/10 and stopped looking for houses until January 8th.

After we failed to find something before the tax credit expired, we decided we needed to take a break from it all.  We had devoted so much of our time and weekends and we felt it would be good for our hearts and souls to stop for awhile and see where life would take us.

Turns out, life took us great places this year.  (After re-reading this, I realize it sort of ends up like a Christmas card letter...with updates on the year and whatnot...so I apologize for that!)

In August, we had a fantastic vacation in Michigan with my family and made our little "family" just a little bit bigger with the addition of little Miss Linden Zoë Johnson-Truskoski (see pics below).  She is now almost 9 months old and we absolutely ADORE her.  She is a Coton de Tulear and we are head over heels in love with her.  We named her after Lake Linden, Michigan (in the upper Peninsula) close to where Mike went to college and where my family vacationed every year when I was growing up (her "middle name" Zoë is in honor of my family's bearded collie who died at a very young age).  Of course, (and we totally didn't think of this when we named her) Linden is also the terminal stop on the Purple Line here in Chicago.  How perfect, huh?  If we end up living in Evanston, we will be once again Purple Line riders.

After bringing Linden into our lives, the prospect of house hunting became even more daunting, as we would have to leave her for hours at a time--something we couldn't even do until recently since her bladder was so small!  Ha!

In September and October, we were able to catch a couple of Notre Dame games, which were so much fun.  In November, we found ourselves on our biggest adventure of the year--a 10 day trip to visit our dear friends, Nick and Emily Drury in Hawaii!  Linden got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa and we had the best vacation of all time.  We stayed with Nick & Em, who generously provided us with a car and their wealth of knowledge about what to do (and not to do) on the island (we were on the Big Island).  From beaching to exploring Volcanoes National Park to seeing the tropical Hilo side to tasting fresh coffee in Kona coffee country, we continued to be amazed by all the incredible things Hawaii has to offer.  We got to swim with manta rays and explore the stars on the top of Mauna Kea.  We were able to get in some great hikes, meet some hilarious people and best of all, spend a lot of QT with two of our most favorite people on this planet.  It will be pretty hard to top this trip!

In December, Mike and I took a long weekend trip to Aspen to celebrate his birthday.  We had an amazing time snowboarding, enjoying fantastic food and exploring Aspen and Snowmass.  While it was definitely too short, it was a trip we will remember forever.  Linden also experienced her first snowfall and she loved it!

After that, we spent both of the holidays in Milwaukee and had a fantastic time!  Christmas was wonderful and the New Years Eve party my parents through was a blast and a half!

So that pretty much brings us to the present.  Mike and I decided after the holidays that it was time to dive back into the homebuying process.  Since our lease is up July 31st, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get something squared away.  So we went out the first weekend in January.  We saw about 7 houses and nothing really grabbed us.

The following weekend, Mike's youth hockey team had tournament in the Wisconsin Dells, so I spent the weekend in Milwaukee while he was there.  This past weekend was a whirlwind but we decided to try and spend a couple of hours hunting (by the way, we are still working with our fantastic realtor, Lisa, and have added an equally fantastic mortgage broker, Suzanne, to our team) in between all of our weekend activities (which included me working both mornings, hosting dinner for Mike's coworker Saturday evening, me heading to my friend and coworker, Jen's, boyfriend's concert after the dinner and a Bears/Packers game get together on Sunday.  So we ventured out after I worked on Saturday and saw 6 houses, three in Evanston and three in Highland Park.

And now for the ACTUAL home buying update: we put an offer down on a house in Evanston Sunday afternoon.  It's an old farmhouse that has been beautifully maintained and has a lot of character.  There are definitely things, as with any house, that need to be done or are missing, but we think it could be a fantastic starter home.  So, we sent the offer over to Lisa to submit and sent a quick email to Suzanne to have her run the numbers.

Well, by this morning, the listing agent had already called Suzanne for our qualifications (which we are so fortunate to be well-qualified buyers, even at our young age...thank you Mike for that!!!!!) which led us to believe a counter offer might be coming.

Sure enough, just a few hours later, a counter offer was on the table and they had come down the amount we had hoped to see for a first counter offer.  Unfortunately, the house is priced much higher than we'd like to pay AND what we think the house is worth.  The major "price reducers" for us is that there are only 2 bedrooms, no garage (but plenty of space to build one) and no air conditioning.  In addition, it's on the far south side of Evanston (totally fine with us, but the price they're asking is definitely high for a 2 bed/2 bath in that neighborhood) and is located on a fairly busy street.  There are about a million things we love about the house, but plenty we feel could really help us bring the price down.

We were also able to hear a bit about the couple selling the house and I have my fingers crossed that Mrs. Home Seller has a heart like mine.  They just recently had a baby and Mr.'s commute to the Wisconsin border has just gotten to be too much, so they are moving closer to the border.  Our hope is that their need to move soon coupled with the current market will bring them down right where we want them.

So, we have put our counter offer on the table and now it's just a waiting game again.

We could use thoughts, prayers and good vibes from all of you.  This is the furthest we've ever come with a home thus far and I really believe this is the absolute perfect starter home for us (as it seems to have been for this couple, as well) if we can get the price to the absolute perfect spot.  :)

Of course, it's all a numbers game but positive thinking never hurt anyone.  So here's to hoping that you will all be attending a fabulous housewarming party this spring!

Keep sending your love our way...we'll need it!
♥H