Con

2/2 - The cock sucking lender/broker still haven't closed the loan. We suspected they were going to try to stall until Feb to make more money somehow and that's exactly what they did. They claimed all sorts of bs reasons like end of the month and they fired 1/2 the people but in reality, they somehow profited by waiting until feb.

The real estate agent sold us this broker based on him closing on time but he sure as fuck didn't close on time. He missed 2 dates. Also the seller blackmailed us into going with that broker saying they would pull out of the deal if we didn't use him. So they really fucked themselves by doing that. If we woulda went with Wells Fargo, they would have had their money by now.

I hope to post more when I get internet again.
1/29 - Got the house about 2 p.m. or so. Man some asshole let their dog shit in the garage. The sellers would not take it off the market until like a week before it closed so a ton of people were going through the place and it was SO dirty.

2 neighbors already stopped by. There's a beautiful Asian lady across who said she lives with her dad and cousin. Man her house is way nicer, two story with a Mercedes AMG and another BMW. There's an old codger next door to us that is pretty friendly. Then there's a Korean family across with a few kids, that are the same age as our kid.

1/29 - Hope to get the keys by 12. The agent is going to rent the place for a day or two before we close. Awesome.

1/28 Update 2: Looks like we can rent the place out (from ourselves?) until the house is ours. So we hope to get the key tomorrow morning. I'm getting a truck and moving all day. Then next day some pro movers move some of the big things. I also have to move out of HotLikeMe's storage unit. Should be a big mess but hopefully I won't have to live at the bottom of a trash can someday when it's cleaned up.

Update 1: The lender basically said they wouldn't fund it until a week later. They were the problem. We have a broker that went to a lender but I still blame the broker and will bad mouth them probably. Currently we're looking at maybe getting the place tomorrow if possible. Our agent has been super cool. The seller/lender have been jerks. The MAN seller is cool, his agent is a bizatch.

1/28 - It's not the seller screwing us. It's the lender. We signed on Friday and sent our $ to escrow. Then the papers said 1/27 and here it is the 28th and no house. He gaveus some bs about it being the end of the month or something. We suspect something shady is going on. Everyone said this is unheard of. We might consult a lawyer.

1/27 - Man they keep fucking me. I gave the money and signed the loan papers on Friday but now they say I can't get in until THIS Friday, a week later? We're trying to get that date modified. I was hoping to move Wed Night, all Thurs, most of Friday. We have a Fridge being installed on Thursday. HotLikeMe's mom is flying in Wednesday. Now we're being fucked. I'm furious. We got forced into this lender guy that is a good deal BUT we've seen a week delay, and now another week delay on top of that. If I can't get in until Friday then I'm really fucked for moving in. I need 1 day before the pro movers to get the general crap out of the way. I also need several days of cleanup. So I'd have to pay my apartment even longer to stay there. We're thinking just dump the shit on the patio if they won't let us in. haha.

1/26 - Get the keys maybe Wednesday. I'm going to be moving Wed - Sunday. HotLikeMe's mom is coming to help her move her stuff.

1/23 - We're supposed to sign the loan docs today. Just me I mean. The House is entirely mine. But she's done most of the work. She owns her own house + she has an accounting degree so she knows more about what is going on than me.

1/20 - Our house is now going to close at the end of the month. HotLikeMe talked the apartment place down to $200 to stay longer. She got us a new fridge and we have to rent a truck to get it to the garage then, later get another truck to take it to the house. Lame.

1/16 - I'm so mad. We were supposed to close today. Now we have no idea when we're supposed to close. It's going to cost $600 to stay ONE MORE WEEK at my apartment. They're ordering a SECOND appraisal now, and I sure don't feel like paying for that. We have a garage full of boxes because we were going to move.

I spent like $75 to fax/fedex all these forms from Oregon and now I'm hearing I have to fill out ALL the new papers again. I'm so pissed.

1/14 - Lame, closing date extended at least a week. I was going to move over the FREE Monday day off. :( I already started packing and have a bunch of boxes packed. Luckily I didn't take my stereo down. I almost did it.

1/13 - Got the loan approved, I just need to get the papers and sign. Did the final inspection today. Some asshole went and took all of the UNRIPE oranges off the Orange tree. We're really disappointed about that. No one seemed to know why or who did it. :(

It's hard to call it a house, it feels more like an apartment. No one is attached to us except there's a garage of a neighbor attached to the otherside of our patio. The "houses" all look alike though except those who have modified theres. I can't for the life of me even find the place, I keep turning down the wrong streets because every row of "houses" look alike. I finally found one stand out house on the corner to recognize so I know where to turn.

We get to move in maybe starting Friday. There's a pool right next door a few feet, a tennis court is across the street too.

It's not a huge place, about 1,300 sq feet but it's in one of the nicest areas and top 10 safest city in US. It's also right next door to work, I'll start biking.

HOA

It's a HOA place. I didn't want to do that and the fee is kinda high but HOA fees are almost always required in the city.

On paper the HOA sounds kinda like dicks but in person they seem pretty nice. The only rules I don't like is that they won't let anyone but PEOPLE go on the sidewalks. It's not like you'd want your kids on the street on their scooters. Hopefully they don't enforce that one.

Another rule I don't like is that to make a second story on your place you have to have neighbors that have one stories. That's the case now and we only have one neighbor but if they beat you to a second story, you can't do one on your own.

1/4 - HotLikeMe is handling pretty much all of it. I just sign papers. She's an accountant and owns her own house besides this. She's doing a great job as far as I know.

Fedexed and faxed some documents back to the lender and seller. Basically there's no way to back out now except on HOA docs (which I haven't seen). HOA fees are bs but for the town here, almost all of them have them. I do get a pool, gym, clubhouse for it.

What's really pissing us off is they keep saying it's still for sale and showing it to people despite us being close to owning it. Apparently they won't take it down until they get one document from us. Pretty lame.

I'm closing like a week or so after I get back to California. Then it's moving time.

12/30 - We need to fax back our seller's disclosure report. We can't get it to print here and we have to go somewhere to fax everytime.

The apartment complex told us they were going to remodel our place so we wouldn't need to pay a lease break, then they changed their mind on us. They wanted $2,300. Well we threatened to take them to small claims court. Then they magically came up with a better solution. They said they would go back to our lease signing and pretend we never signed it. Before, they wanted $3,000+ lease break fee.

We're still trying to get papers to the loan broker to lock in our rate. Brokers are lame. The only way this is going to pay off if he locks in some lower rate.

12/25 - All kinds of shady stuff going on. If things get too shady, I won't sign.

12/23 - We ended up selecting a broker. He had 5% interest vs. higher for other people. He had like $1,500 more closing costs but overall the payment will be cheaper. Hopefully he doesn't put any hidden fees. He did give a good faith estimate. The seller is being a real mother fucker because they have lots of offers on the place. They gave us an ultimatum to select a lender by 5p.m. or they're out. I don't think they can really do that.

Two of the Mortgage people that me or my family knew have since gone out of business in the last two weeks. Crazy.

12/22 - Leaning toward Wells Fargo right now. We did look at Bank of A.

We're looking for lenders on the house so any tips, let us know. We're going to go out looking today. I'm doing FHA so some places are no good for me.

12/19 - We did a home inspection. Only a few things were wrong. I guess the water heater is leaking CO2. Now we have to find a good loan for the place. I printed out tons of documents needed to get a loan.

Opened escrow today. Did home inspection today ($285). I have to buy it from Oregon. Gone.

12/18 - I *THINK* we bought a house. They say they're looking into multiple offers but we're #1 in line. They wanted $10k in cash deposit which I paid today. The house is 3 bedroom and completely redone. It has no yard but a large patio and community pool/tennis/clubhouse. It has lame HOA fee, unfortunately.

It's 3 bedroom and completely redone inside. It's the cheapest of any of the houses we bid on and it's actually a house we bid on 2 bids ago. It came on the market again for some unknown reason. It's very popular with people looking at it. It's not really pretty on the outside but it's an ok starter home for house newbs.

They want a $3,000 lease break fee (IRVINE APARTMENT FUCKERS) that we're hoping to avoid by getting a new person to rent it.

It's kinda strange that when we come back we'll have to immediately pack up and move.

We'll see how it goes. I don't have a lot of confidence that I can keep up with the initial costs.

11/20 - Our 7th bid wasn't accepted. I think something is wrong. There are houses going for cheaper than we're offering that are as good or better than what we're bidding on.

Also Fannie, Freddie Suspend Foreclosures Through Jan. 9 (Update2)

10/23 - Well I found a house that's really close to work. I bid on it. That's my 6th bid now. It's way cheaper than the previous ones.

9/19 -

9/9 - Right now I just want to wait and save up more money. I didn't have enough to start off anyway, I just had a little over the down payment.

9/4 - We decided yesterday to not buy the house. I did pay for the inspection but oh well. The payments were going to be like $4,000 a month. I don't see why they can't tell me that beforehand...It doesn't matter really. Even if we got a cheaper payment, HotLikeMe isn't ready to give up all the party/fun to work.

9/1 - So we discover today that buried in the offer on an addendum was an acceptance of our 5k in closing costs. So they actually did accept our original offer. So now we're going to go forward with it and do an inspection.

8/30 - Update: decided not to buy it because of closing costs.

So I get over to sign the papers on the house when I'm surprised with that the bank won't pay closing costs. So I'm looking at something like 10k extra to even get in the place. You'd never catch up from that. The only way to raise that money is to gut my 401k or get a loan from my 401k. So that means more money per month on a 2nd loan and if I'm ever fired (which you never know with me) I have 90 days to pay it back. So someone gives me a line of "well if you lose your job you got bigger problems like how to pay your rent." I think you'd be looking at something like 30k to even get in a house. Then you'd be so strapped you'd never make it because you need that initial money to get the house going etc. So I'm thinking don't do it. The house is perfect and a deal though but hey we all want Lamborghini. Doesn't mean we can afford them.

8/29 - Our Bid was Accepted - Just got an update that the people buying house #4 fell through because of repair costs. So we will have an inspector come in next week see just what those repair costs are. They accepted our offer and we'll see. I don't have $$ to do massive repairs at this point. I barely have enough to get into it. If the repairs are too bad, I'll have to quit out too.

The area is nice. I guess the school area isn't that great but you can petition to move.

I think even if things got bad, the house will still sell for 20-40k more than what I paid (if I pay).

It has an above ground spa, hope it works.

8/24 - Bid #5 -Looked at a house 3 doors down from our dream home. This one has a pool and jacuzzi. The place was so crowded with buyers that in 20 mins there was 9 sets of families trying to see the place. There were about 25 business cards in 3 days. That's how huge the demand is here. Every house goes in 3 days. The biggest shit house that requires like 100k+ in work still sold too. Anyway on the above house, I'd love to have a jacuzzi and we love pools but I'm not a huge fan of maintaining one. They said $65 a month for a pool guy. Also the pool might still need repairs. I have no faith we'll ever win any of these houses anymore. We bid like 30k over.

8/23 - Checked out a house yesterday. It had a few probs, it had no bath tubs. The backyard was all cement and a pool but after talking to the pool guy, the pool had probs. It was nice and clear and after 1 week it was green swamp water. It's leaking or something. I said forget it.

We looked at another house about 3 houses down from bid #3. We even saw the jerks out there on their lawn. We thought they might be freaked that we're stalking them since we bid twice. Why won't they sell us their house. TT.

8/20 - Just heard we failed on Bid #4. I liked that house too. I'm so sad/depressed about it. I just want to give up and so does HotLikeMe. Maybe a better house will come along but it sucks that you want these houses and even have the money (just not cash) but you can't buy them. You get attached to ones after making offers only to never hear back or to lose. Bank Foreclosures suck because the Banks are such assholes about getting back to you.

We're going to try one last ditch bid on our dream home, Bid #3 (3 bedroom, awesome backyard/kitchen). It says backup offers accepted and maybe they won't be able to sell to their friend after all.

I think we will go renting month to month which costs an extra $200 a month penalty and look for about 3 months then quit. I'm ditching cable too. That's almost $275 over 3 months.

8/18 -

Bid #4 (2 Story with Spa)

4 Bedroom with Spa. Two Story. Bank Forclosure. Waiting on response.

Bid #3 (Awesome Kitchen/Roman Garden Home)

Awesome backyard and kitchen. As talked about previously we made a bid and the sellers rejected and claimed to sell to a friend. But then they put the house back on the market with a better picture and description. But then it changed to Back Up Offers Accepted. Then it changed to Contingent. We think that means they're selling the house to a friend but only if the friend first sells their house. We're calling for details. What nonsense. We want to buy now. I wish they would just not be assholes and say we don't want to sell our hose. We said we'll still buy and their agent is supposed to let us know if they want to sell.

8/16 - So the house we really liked and bid on but they rejected, and they claimed they are selling it to a friend. Well it's back on the market again today. Fuckers man. They claim "sellers are motivated" which is a lie.

Also our 2nd bid, train track house was lowered 20k but they never responded to our offer that was way above that. Idiots.

8/15 - You read all this crap about the housing market but here is how it is in REAL LIFE. All of the houses are being bought unless they totally suck. They are being bought 2-3 days if they are good. But the houses are down in price 100-200k. For example, the house I'm bidding on is down 200k+.

Bid #4

Found ANOTHER 4 bedroom that we're going to try to make an offer on. This time it's crappier inside but 4 bedrooms and more space and a spa. We'll see.

Turns out that house was owned by a Mexican guy who got deported and the bank took it over. The wife of the guy then tried to rent it out to keep up until the bank took it over. It needs new carpet and appliances.

8/14 - Update2: The sellers have another offer (NOT OURS) going through with full price (no $ for closing cost). Ours included 12k closing cost. They told us to be patient and see what happens with that offer. We think that if they don't accept/decline our offer within 72 hours, that's just it. Basically they're just dicking us around so I'm just going to forget all about it. We don't even know if they really want to sell at all to begin with. It would be cool if they would just say NO so we aren't hanging on and getting our hopes up.

This is our 3rd failed offer on 3 different houses so we're tried of losing and our lease is up so we're just going to re-sign our lease. If we have to break the lease (which will suck at $3,000+ penalty) we will just do it :( or we may just go month to month rent.

Original Update - Doesn't look good for our offer. Yesterday their agent wouldn't get back to us. Our agent called the seller and they wouldn't discuss it or give any impression on their answer and just said talk to their agent (aka Talk to my Lawyer). We get the impression the guy wants to sell and is cool but the wife is a bitch. If this doesn't work out both of us are going to be very sad because it's our dream house. We'll probably quit looking for a while. So far in the last week 5 houses have had their prices increase by 50k. :( :( :(

8/13 - Well no news on our offer. That gets us scared. If they aren't interested we would like to at least hear so. We're still hoping. If they reject it, we'll probably just save up.

8/12 - Heard some news today that they might be making a counter offer. Better than a rejection. We're so excited about the house. I hope we can get it AND pay for it. haha.

Might find out today if they take our offer on the house.

Everything here is selling out in 1-2 days unless it's a Short Sale. We went to some house that went up on Friday or Saturday that was a bank forclosure and it was sold on Monday. It needed a ton of work too and there were a lot of problems with it. Two houses even jacked up the prices 50k. So whatever housing problems people are talking about don't seem to apply here in OC. The houses have dropped 100-200k BUT they're being bought by someone. We speculated it's foreigners using oil money! :)

8/11 - Part 2 - Trying to make an offer on another house today. It is one we've wanted for a while. We'll see if they take it. Today I ate lunch for $1.51!

8/11 - Turns out that $3,900 a month guy might be full of shit. Wellsfargo offered only $3,500 a month. Which still seems like insane BUT I'm essentially paying $3,000 a month already because of the money I'd get back on taxes for owning a house. Also HotLikeMe is going to kick in on rent. So the lesson is, shop around for a LENDER because they will lie about interest rates, payments, and closing costs.

HotLikeMe's sister went to a lender. He said $6,000 closing costs and a rate. They happened to check someone else and it was only $2,500 closing costs. They told the first GUY they didn't want to take his loan and when the papers got submitted to escrow, the first guy sent his papers in anyway with only $1,500. He was lying and was doing something to get the loan. THEN after they went with the more honest girl for $2,500, she still sold the loan to Citibank to make $$. Also the Real Estate agent is getting $ for referring you to the shady lender.

8/9 - Well looked at a 500k house but the payment would be $3,900. That's the jumbo rate too. In January, they increase the jumbo rate but it's only a savings of about $150/month. No way.

8/7 - Made an offer on an Irvine House. The last offer we made we were filling out the offer when it was noticed as sold. I really wanted that last one. It needs work on the landscape but inside just needs some carpet and paint as far as I can see. We weren't totally hyped about it but it does have a perfect Irvine location. It's the perfect Fisher Price My First House™. We low-balled on the offer so I'm expecting it to fail. It was bank forclosure. We noticed there's a lot of foreclosures around the same area.

The houses around are down 100-200k in price since a few years ago. They're all selling out in a few days to a week. People are buying up like mad. Every house I look at has tons of people looking at them. The one best house we found didn't sell because it had HORRIBLE pictures of it on the web despite it being super awesome. We missed that one but I think the winner offered way above what I could ever pay.

After this house offer fails (unless something crazy happens), we'll either keep looking or wait on the apartment lease being up and save some more downpayment. As long as you have 3% it doesn't matter if you have more unless you have 20% of the downpayment. Also if you can get to January, they raise the Jumbo loan number higher than $417k. Nearly every house in OC is over 417k so that number is bs to begin with.

But if I don't buy this year, I lose a huge chunk of taxes, like I do every year. It's only several hundred dollars more to buy a house and I plan on cutting costs by doing less and maybe ditching cable/gamefly for $120 a month. We'll also get $100 back by getting rid of our storage unit.

I wish I could make some decent $ on advertising. I can't seem to clear more than $75 or so a month. I was going to get lots from Google Adsense until they banned me.

8/5

Back to looking at houses again. We keep finding ones we want but then they get instantly sold. I was trying to buy before my lease is up. The leasing place keeps calling to lock us into an 8 or 12 month lease.

I got approved again for up to 500k house.

Update 3 : Looks like I don't qualify for the $7,500 tax break cuz I make too much money :( The Salary sounds great but when rent is $2,000 a month and taxes are like 28% it disappears pretty quickly. California Gas is also some of the most expensive in the country. Last check was $4.60/gal.

"First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit Provision of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008"

Update 2 : WoW, like 20 mins later, the 2nd house we wanted sold too at full price. :( The problem now is my lease is up and the fuckers at Irivine Company raised the lease break fees to $3300 from like $2300 because they don't want people buying houses.

Update 1 : Haha now we're back to looking again. After running the numbers for everything, it would only be like $300 more for a house vs. renting + the $7,500 government payback for first time buyers.