New House

Finally! We are going to close and move in to our new house next week. The paper work is all done and finalized. We go to sign on Wednesday most likely (my work schedule won't allow me to go on Tuesday). We are so excited to have this horrific experience behind us after 2 months of headaches and nightmares with the underwriter. I really believe we had the absolute worst underwriter ever. Everybody involved with this process is livid with how the underwriter handled our case, delayed it by many weeks, and wasted way too much time.

We had way, way too many lost days because the underwriter would review our case, put it to the side and send a request to us wanting more information, often lame, redundant requests too. Then, after having to go through the third party and then to us, we automatically lost two days. We would immediately return the requested info only to have another lost two days in passing the info through the third party. Then after leaving the info on her desk for two days, she would finally return to our case. So, it was often an entire week wasted for every one of her inane requests. One example (there are dozens more, trust me) that illustrates how stupid the underwriter was is regarding the cabinets in the house. One day we received a request for documentation proving that the house had cabinets. We replied politely (I wanted to really tell her my thoughts, but had to remain calm and patient) that if she would look at the appraisal documents we provided from the beginning, she would see the photos of the cabinets in the house. Amazing! So many times she would ask for stuff she already had, but would waste another week because of her lack of a brain. So, thanks stupid underwriter for dragging this process out to an entire month past our original closing date.

We didn't want to stay with them, but they kept telling us for two months that we were almost there and that they should be done with it all "any day now". Had we known it would have been delayed so much, we would have gone with a different company much earlier, but we had no idea it would turn into such a circus. Well, we finally got nasty with her and told the company she works for that we had enough. We got our third extension from Zions bank (who we were buying the house from), and told the underwriter if she didn't have all the documents done the next day at noon, we were taking our case to another company. Lo and behold, they got right to it and things got done. Amazing.

The only thing that kept Lisa and me sane through the entire debaucle was the thought of getting into this home for so cheap. It was built last summer and just sat vacant while the market tanked. We have been renting a house across the cul de sac from it, and we knew the week it finally got handed over to Zions bank in foreclosure. Our real estate agent Gary (what an amazing guy, thanks for everything Gary) went to the bank with our own private appraisal and low balled Zions big time. After a little going back and forth they settled on a price that was way cheaper than it even costs to build the house. The house is much bigger than we wanted, but we decided for that price we would be foolish to pass it up. Basically, we are getting the lot for free and the house for $75 a square foot. Sweet mamacita! I guess that is one good thing that has come from the bad economy.

So here are a few pics of the house. This is the house looking at it from the South. We are at the end of the cul de sac, so it will be great for the kids to grow up playing in the circle.

Here is a view as you enter the front door and begin to walk upstairs to the bedrooms.

This is the kitchen.

This is the living room.

This is the mud room as you come in from the garage.

Here is a view of Provo Peak and Deer Creek reservoir from our master bathroom.

And here is a view of Mt. Timpanogas from our master bedroom. The views are fantastic from this house.

We love living in Midway and are so excited to finally own a house and to not have to pay rent any more.