APPROVED!

We got the most amazing, wonderful, exciting (and a little scary) news the night before yesterday. Desteni, from our mortgage company, contacted us to say that the pre-underwriting process was approved and as long as we paid two additional bills we were qualified to go and look for a home. So let me explain the underwriting thing...essentially, since our credit score wasn't quite where it needed to be, Desteni reached out to a couple of the lenders that she works with regularly to see if an exception can be made. If we could prove that our credit/financial challenges are truly something of the past and we've really been on time with paying our bills over the past 12 months there is a chance that the underwriter would believe in us and approve our loan. So what did we have to provide? 3 - non traditional bills for the past 12 months (these are bills that don't typically hit your credit report...such as electric, gas, cellphone, car insurance etc) - we provided 14 months of our electric bill, 13 months of our gas bill, and a year of car insurance (all paid on time). We sent our W2 and income tax returns, copies of my pay stubs (they asked for a month, I gave them two months) and signed two approvals for them (one stating that we were going to enter into a loan agreement and another allowing them to get Verification of Employment and bank information etc.). She requested these items on Monday afternoon and by around 1:30 AM Monday night/Tuesday morning! Tuesday afternoon we were told that Desteni forwarded everything to the underwriter for approval and that this process typically takes 2 days...We were counting on an answer today. On Wednesday evening at around 5:30, I got an email with the subject line "GREAT NEWS"!!! I spent the next hour shaking and crying - we've worked so hard to get here. I can't believe that we made it to this point!
We contacted our realtor that night to share the news and start putting together a list of homes we'd like to tour. She sent some possibles - We already had a list going. Now it was time to get real - which of these home could we REALLY see ourselves and our children in? We narrowed down the list and will meet up with Kathi, the realtor, tomorrow morning, around 10:00 AM to actual go into these homes. We'll walk on the floors that may some day be ours. We'll run our fingers along the woodwork. We'll smell the Earth that surrounds our home and dream about where we will plant all of our trees.
So who are the front runners?

We've nicknamed all the homes - based on either where they are or another description. This is the "Georgetown-Verona House" A 4 bed/1 bath sitting on 18.5 acres...also the most expensive home.


"The Blue House" - Oh we just love this one. It's the largest home, but not too much land...


"The Big Barn, Railroad Track House" - A 3 (really 4) bed/2 bath home on 10 acres. One side of the property (away from the home) has a train track...thinking of warm nights listening to train whistles...LOVE!


"The T House"...because the house sits at the end of a T in the road. This home is on 5 areas...I'm not too sure about the size of the home though.


"The Triangle Property" - Decent size home, with several outbuildings. It's on 8.2 acres, but the property is literally shaped like a triangle.


"The Limestone House" - This is a great house, on just shy of two acres. No air conditioning though - I know that needing air conditioning is not very "green" but Ohio humid summers just call for air at times.


"The creek, big hill, trashy neighbor house" - ha! Not a great description...I know. This house has a creek that runs under the drive way and sits at the top of a large hill. The property to 9.5 acres...I'm thinking that the house is too small though. It is the smallest of all.

Oh, so what about those two bills we had to pay? Well, because we've paid all of our credit cards off and have money in the bank - we were able to pay the two bills (around $3,000) without too many pains and certainly without borrowing money from my parents or Mark's parents/grandmother. That is an amazing feeling (KNOCKING ON WOOD!!!).

In other news, Mark has been substitute teaching a lot these days and has a summer job as an educator at Aullwood farm set up. The extra bits of money here and there definitely help and others see his teaching style - we've noticed an increase in teaching job postings over the past couple weeks. Hoping that once we narrow our home search down that he'll be able to secure a good job. This is an exciting time for sure.