Day 16

Man! There are a lot of little steps to buying a house that we did not know about. The appraisal started either today or yesterday and we learned some things. For the FHA loan we want to have we have to have a stove in the house. WHAT?! Random! That was actually going to be one of the last appliances we purchased but now it will have to be the first. Good thing we had already been all over town looking for appliances. We mustve gone to about 5 different places a couple weekends ago and that really saved our behinds! We already knew that Home Depot and Lowes have the best prices, so we decided on Home Depot. We didn't have to purchase it today but we had to report back to our agent exactly which stove we were planning on purchasing so that she could get the approval from the bank for us to bring it in the house. I know right, we have to have the stove in there but we also have to ask for approval? ha! We ending up picking out a GE stainless steel stove that we are going back to purchase tomorrow. We also learned that the hole in the side of the house has to be repaired before the appraisal can be complete. Interesting. So the handy man is going to fix that for us before the closing, and then after the closing he will get that money out of our 6% credit. Also found out that the bank will be covering the past due charges against the house but now we are wondering if we have a grace period with the HOA to fix those items after moving in or if we can get fined starting immediately (unfair!). It now seems like everyday brings us a new challenge that we couldn't possibly have forseen!

Edit: I forgot to mention that the house was appraised at 173,000, and our purchase price was $160,000. That means we've already gained equity!