A sudden turn of events

Wow...who could have predicted today!!!

Ed is in crazy meetings all day, I'm working in the morning which included my annual review with my manager (good news! that went well) and then off to a funeral; my good friend Larry Borne's mother passed away. After the funeral, I was talking with Larry's son-in-law Austin, about the house he recently purchased as a rental unit. He was telling me about all the tax benefits there is to owning rental property vs. your primary residence. Wow...that certainly sounded interesting given the fact that we haven't received an offer on our Carrollton home.

As soon as I got in the car from the funeral, Laura called me to tell me we received an offer on the Carrollton home. I immediately thought 'Praise the Lord'! Then she went on to tell me about the low-ball offer they gave us. As we were talking, Ed called into Laura and we hung up. I knew Ed wouldn't be happy with the offer but I also knew how much he wanted to sell this house so we wouldn't have three mortgage payments. I thought for sure he would accept the offer and we would walk away with a 'sold' house...no, that's not what happened at all.

Ed countered the offer.

Ed knew something I did not know; Ed had received his commission check from his Q2 deal and now things had changed! Finances were not as important as before and now we're needing more tax shelters than we did earlier that day. Remember, I was just talking to Austin about tax benefits less than 30 minutes earlier. We decided to call our accountant tomorrow to learn more about this to help us make a educated decision.

Still, no word

Well, we still haven't heard anything on the Carrollton house. Keeping the fingers crossed!

A little less stressful!

Today was a relatively quiet day comparatively speaking and a lot less stressful. There were a few addendum's to make to the contract; basically, we pushed the close date to Sept. 3rd from August 26th. Still searching for the 'perfect' financing but I'll will stop after we've checked out three different companies. Hope to have that accomplished tomorrow.

Carrollton house update: Sorry to report...still no offer! My tummy is getting a little nervous but for some reason, I still have a good feeling. Only time will tell and this is definitely a wait-and-see game!

Laura says that Kristin is searching for a roommate to move into the townhome with. I hope it works out for her although I hope it's not too much for her in the end. I certainly wouldn't want to put her a place that would overextend her financially.

Until tomorrow.
Lisa

We were what??? Accepted.....ALREADY?

We were finally able to get the contract submitted today and within 2 hours, they accepted our offer. OMG...now what do we do!!!

Hopefully, we'll get that offer on the Carrollton house tomorrow. That's what the Real Estate person said today! Please Lord!!!

We're not ready

Wow..today was a whirlwind!

Now what do we do? We found a house that we love, we have another house for sale (that's been on the market for 130 days without an offer) and we live in yet another house. Do we really want 3 mortgage payments? Why of course...it's the American way!!! Actually, we don't want 3 mortgage payments so we decided to pray. We asked the Lord if this was NOT right for us...then to close all the doors quickly. However, it was from Him, than to let this happen quickly and effortlessly.

So today, was a day of preparing and learning.

We learned that Fannie May was selling this house and offered a special finance program for foreclosures called 'Home Path' financing. We were able to get a pre-qualification letter from one of the Home Path lenders in order to submit an offer and also started putting together the financing and contract...but what offer do we submit? This took longer than expected.

Carrollton house update: Laura called to check on yesterday's showing with the Real Estate person...good news, they're going to submit an offer!

This house has good bones!

We asked Laura to get a key so we could see the inside of the house, and low-and-behold, the selling agent was holding an open house...how convenient. There were several other folks that came in to see the house too while we were there. However, meeting Michael helped seal the deal. The next door neighbor, Michael came over to see how much they were asking for the house - just out of curiosity. He told us that the house had a new air conditioner and the pool actually worked (even though it was green) and only needed a couple things fixed to run like new. He had been putting 'shocker' in there monthly and running the pool so it wouldn't turn into a mosquito pond because he has young kids. Anyway, he said the house was in good condition it just needed some TLC as it hadn't been cared for in several months -- and that was quit evident.

We loved the house even though it does need some work. Laura said it well when she said 'this house has good bones'.

Ok...what's next!

By the way...we had another showing on the Carrollton house today. Somehow, I have a feeling this might be good.

I think we found a house

Ed and I have never been able to decide if we wanted to stay in the townhome, mainly because it's kind of small for both of us, but we could pay it off and live mortgage free OR should we purchase a little larger home that we could enjoy for many years to come. Because of this, I registered with Zip Realty and they send me all new houses postings in the zip code of my choice. Well...I've been doing this for about a year now and have seen many wonderful houses come up for sale, but none that I have ever thought was the 'one'...until this one. Not sure why, but I just really liked this home when I saw it and there weren't even that many photos of it but for some reason, it just seemed right. I asked Ed if we could drive by and just look at the outside of it. As we were driving into the neighborhood, we both kind of sensed something. Anyway, to make a long story short...we both fell in love with it. It was exactly what we have been looking for. The only problem is that is a foreclosure and that meant complications and a little more work than we were really wanting. In addition to this, our house in Carrollton is still on the market...and has been for 129 days, without one offer. What the heck...we have to see it!

We're Celebrating our 1st Anniversary in Paris

Ed surprised me with a trip to Paris to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary!!! How wonderful was that.
We flew out of DFW on Friday, July 2nd and arrived in Paris on Saturday, July 3rd - our anniversary day. Ed had an incredible lunch planned for us at Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower.

As you can see, this was a beautiful restaurant (which takes about 2 months to get a reservation --- even for lunch) and the only problem was that we were sooo tired and because our room wasn't ready, we were unable to change clothes so we had to wear the clothes that we left Dallas in. We felt a little uncomfortable, well, I should say that I felt uncomfortable! Anyway, we had a lovely time!!!