God is Amazing!Our First Home-Buying Story!

We have already updated the front of the house majorly, will post more later!

In the past, Nick and I have looked into purchasing a new home, but with our budget, the home and the yard would have had to been minuscule- you could literally reach your hand across to touch the next door neighbors home. Nick was not a fan of that at all, so we quickly scrapped that idea and knew that we would eventually be buying a older home that had some fixing up to do... which ended up being my absolute favorite part! We also knew would be getting more for our money if we found an older decent home, that needed some fixing. We could customize it to our liking, at a more reasonable price and get a better size home, in our opinion, then a brand new home.

So towards the end of July we set on our search for our home, which entailed a TON of looking. Then at the beginning of August, before we left for family vacation, we found a Short Sale home we really liked! We fell in love with the location, the potential of the home and could see ourselves living there for a long time. The backyard was an okay size, not to big and not too small(and had a pool). It also had a small driveway/garage and a front yard, inside laundry room and a Christmas Tree Window-they may sound odd to some, but was my personal criteria for any house we bought, ask our Realtor! So we decided to put in an offer right away. The homeowner accepted our offer within a few days, but we also had to wait for the bank to accept too, which is a lengthy process. If you know nothing about Short Sale you can find more info here.
About 4 months in, lots of prayer and drive by's, we got an approval from the bank too! We were given a VERY short time to close escrow, forcing us to ask for an extension. We were thankfully granted a 19 day extension, which gave us tell December 28th to close, but it was still VERY tight to close by then. AND could kill the deal if we didn't make that date. It was literately down to the minuet, with closing on time.
The days right before the 28th were soo hard! Lots of paperwork, not knowing if everything could get done on time...Then the underwriter got in a car accident and was unable to work on our file for a couple of days, unbeknown by our lender, so we lost some time there and the whole thing was up in the air by everyone working on our file, if it could even be done.
On the 28th, I was of course in touch with our Lender multiple times. She emailed me around 3:00 telling me Congrats, the we are going to be homeowners in about an hour or so, when its all done being recorded! I was jumping for joy and could not stop smiling! Then I check my email a few minuets later with her saying, that a legal form was not attached correctly, and our file got kicked back and wouldn't be able to close now until the next day- which would make our extension expire from the bank. I was absolutely devastated!
I began to pray for a miracle. I know that he is a God of miracles and can do anything, so that if this house was supposed to be for us, to please let something happen! About 30 minuets later, our Realtor text me and said that we are on record and Congratulations! I thought he just didn't hear the news yet...but right after that text, our lender called me saying that someone drove our paperwork to the recorders office and the house was officially now ours! I almost burst into tears! I was in complete shock and could not believe what I was hearing. I knew God had this planned from the beginning, each and every step. He made it happen, and just in the knick of time! I think that he was trying to teach me that everything will work out according to his plan and that I just needed trust him no matter what and to NEVER give up hope!!!
I still can't believe after all this time, its our home. There is A LOT of fixing up to do, to get to the point we want, but we really think that is the best part! We will make it our home and add all of our touches on it, down to the doorbell! (it is now a cute little pineapple!)These are the moments I have been waiting for, for a long time! and I will now, also have LOTS of HOME things I can be posting about too!YAY!

We also have some people who made our home happen and want to say THANK YOU!
Our God-for his faithfulness!
Our Relator- Jason Farris!Many text messages to this man throughout the 5 months!haha He is a VERY hard worker, never quits, and always wants the best for his clients.
Corrie Tufte- Assisted our Realtor and I know did tons of things to make it all happen!
Our lender- Tonisha Pacheco!Got us a home loan (with a fabulous rate) and all the headaches that entails!
Our Friends and Family-Who continued to pray for us and Gods plan for us!

Thank you all for helping us get into our first home, we are so happy for this next step in life!