Taxes, Wedding Savings, House Appraisals and More

I haven't posted in awhile because thier hasn't really been alot going on recently. We filed my fiances taxes about a week and half ago. She will be getting refunds from federal and two states. She owes $8 to a third state which she worked in for probably 2 or 3 weeks total this past year. Anyways, we used turbotax and the federal was really easy. The state part was a bit confusing. It didn't help that we moved mid way through the year and crossed the state line. Hopefully we got it right. So she recieved her 2 state refunds via direct deposit last week and we moved that money into our wedding fund. So the wedding fund has increased a total of $750 this month with contributions! I think that's a pretty good month. When we get her federal it will also go to the wedding fund.

I got a call from the bank that is doing our mortgage this morning to let me know they got the appraisal done on the house. We are purchasing the house for 162k and they appraised it for 168k. So that sounds pretty good to me. I have heard that the bank appraisers usually go lower then what the house would be appraised for by someone you personally hired to do it. But for now we'll stick to this appraisal's value.

On the insurance front, we have decided to switch our insurances to Traveler's Insurance. After getting quotes from Nationwide, Allstate, Farmers, StateFarm, Shelter and Traveler's, Traveler's worked out to be slightly cheaper then the next closest and so we decided to go with them. We will be saving almost $600 a year in car insurance which will come close to covering the homeowners insurance. This is because we will get the discounts for having all our plans with the same company. Good news!

Finally! An Agreement Reached!

We finally reached an agreement with the sellers of the house last night for good! After our inspection we realized there were some problems with the drainage in the backyard causing water to pool up on a side of the yard when it rains alot. In the midwest we get alot of water through the winter and spring so this was a concern of ours. We didn't want a pool of water in our backyard for half the year. We want to be able to play in our backyard with our dog. We don't want concerns that the pooling of water could cause foundation problems in the future. Thus, we were set on making sure this issue could be fixed and that the sellers were the ones to have to pay for the solution.

So, we recieved 4 estimates on what it would take to fix the problem. Most all of them were using a drainage system that would bring the water around the side of the house and out the front yard into the street. The estimates ranged from $1,650 to $6,665. The $1,650 came from someone the sellers wanted to get to do the work. We did not like this solution. We did not know if they were just friends that would do a quick fix so the seller could pay as little as possible. They weren't an actual company from what we could tell.

Thus, we decided to take the $1,650 that the sellers were willing to pay in an eschrow account. We will use our company which gave us a bid of $2,600 and a one year warranty that the solution would work. We will pay the difference ourselves.

So with that taken care of we have an agreement and a house will be ours in mid April! It is a scary ordeal. We will be a homeowner and all the costs that come along with home ownership will be our responsibility. The house is wonderful and I can't wait to get the keys and be able to move in! The next concern on our list is getting our current residence rented out so our landlord will release us from the lease. Hopefully we can get that taken care of within the next month!

Home Inspection

We had the inspection on the house we are considering buying on Tuesday and most everything turned up good. There was one problem with drainage in the backyard and what looked to be a little problem has turned into a very big problem. The inspector, who is a family friend, expressed to us his concern that the back yard had very poor drainage and water was and would continue to pool in the backyard making the back yard unusable and putting too much pressure on the foundation. He recommended calling a company that does drainage work to figure see if there was anything to be done to fix the problem.

So Wednesday the drainage company checked out the yard. I was not able to go because of work but the realtor went and she called and told us they thought it would be around $2,500 but were working up an estimate and would get that to her Friday. So today we got the estimate for a much larger number of $6,650.

For my fiance and I this is completely unacceptable. We are going to submit an offer for them to pay for this drainage system to be put in or we are going to drop the contract and move on to looking for a different house. Currently this is not our problem and if they are not willing to pay to have this fixed then we don't want to make it our problem. We have no pressure to move from our current location so we can keep looking and still be fine if we don't find a house for a few months. If we don't find a house in before June we will probably continue renting our current house.

This whole process has gotten frustrating. We are starting to feel like our realtor is just trying to get a sale and isn't looking for the best house for us. She makes little comments that I just don't feel comfortable with. I believe if things fall through with this house we will be looking for a different realtor as well. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Bought A House! Almost.

Well last night the sellers of the house we put an offer in on countered our offer. It was a good counter and showed they were ready to sell. They came down off their offering price about a quarter of the way down to our offer price. They agreed to give us a home warrenty, a refridgerator, and pay most of our closing costs.

We went ahead and counter offered again to try to get the price down to half way between thier asking and our original offer. They accepted and we agreed on a contract. So if everything goes smoothly we will own this house in mid April!

Next on our list is getting house inspected probably next week. At that point we will either renegotiate or move on with the deal depending on what the inspection looks like. Hopefully nothing major will be wrong and we can move along to close the deal at closing.

So we are getting close to making our very first house purchase!

Offered on a House

Well, last night my fiance and I decided to go ahead and put an offer in on the house that we hope to buy. We met over at our realtors office about 7 pm and after looking at the neighborhood comps and the sellers disclosure we went ahead and decided on an offer to send the sellers.

The house asking price is $164,900. We offered them $158,900 and asked for a majority of closing costs, the refridgerator and a home warrenty. I'm not sure how that offer compares. Whether we are asking too much or too little. It is an offer I feel good about putting in which gives us some room for negotiation to a point where we would be satisfied.

Next we will wait and see what they come back with. Hopefully they come back with a decent counter offer. My fear is they will not come back with anything and then we will have to move on to something else. I don't think I could work with someone that wouldn't budge a little on asking price if they are serious about selling thier house. We should find out sometime today whether they accept, reject, or counter our offer. I'm expecting a counter offer.

Easy Home Renovations

My fiance and I are looking into buying our first house together very soon. There are a lot of different options available for us out on the housing market. You can find a house that is completely updated and everything is new inside and needs no work. You can also find a house for quite a bit of a discount that needs work to be acceptable for your living standards. We have seen quite a few homes that just need some minor work inside such has removal of wall paper and painting or new counter tops and flooring in the kitchens.

We personally are looking for something that is mostly done and ready to move into. However, we are considering the houses that we feel need minor work. Especially if those houses can be bought for a nice discount to what a completely nice finished updated house is selling.

I am not a professional construction worker or someone who is great at decorating and remodeling. However, I found a neat site that could help me change all of that. Easy Home Renovations is a website that has many different articles to help you find the information you need to improve your home. You can find everything you need to know from updating your bathroom to creating your own garden, from new flooring to new cabinets or from carpeting to windows. There are many different topics you can read about on this site. If you are thinking about doing a little work to your house, I would recommend checking out this site. I know when my fiance and I finally find our house, we will be looking into this site for different articles before deciding whether to do some work on the house.