Hurry up and wait :)

I feel like Sean and I haven't quiet settled into Tucson yet, it's a weird feeling.  I feel like every time you pick up and move your life somewhere new there is a certain transition time where you still feel like you are on vacation or your old place is still home. 

We have lengthened this transition by delaying moving into our own place so it still sometimes feels like Tucson isn't our home.  When we moved back to Tucson we decided not to rent but to buy so we moved into my Mom's house.  It's been a wonderful place to stay while we have navigated our way through the home buying process.  Morning coffee with my Mommy? Yes please!!!

Being somewhat new (and uneducated)  about the home buying process we had no idea the obstacles that we would face!   For example, since the housing market crash and all of the fraudulent lending practices it has become somewhat impossible to obtain a home loan.  This came as a total surprise to us because we both have good steady jobs, excellent credit and have been saving for years.  However, since we relocated to Tucson, started new jobs and Sean's job was as a contractor no one would even consider our application.  It was so frustrating, so we had to play the waiting game...wait until Sean was brought on with BE...wait until we could find a lender that would consider my job as income (most wouldn't because I'm part time).  Wait, wait, wait all while morgage rated increased almost a whole point.  It was and still is hard to not be bitter about the whole process because we were basically treated like criminals by the lenders we spoke with, I often asked myself who exactly gets a mortgage these days without signing over their first born? 

We finally were able to obtain a pre-approval in August and the home search began.  Sean and I wanted to buy a home in our old neighborhood of West University.  It's walkable to a park, splash pad, coffee, food and the U of A.  They are also completing a streetcar that will connect downtown to the neighborhood so we can take it to the children's museum.  The problem with the neighborhood is that it's full of old historic homes that are small and expensive and there were very few homes for sale. We knew going into this process that we could get so much more in another area of town, but we wanted to the quality of life associated with being so close to all of the things we love.  So in true form we made this much harder on ourselves then needed, but we knew where we wanted to live and that was the most important thing.  We found a great house two blocks from our old place and made an offer.  After almost 3 weeks of going back and forth with counteroffers we finally signed a contract!  Inspection on the property won't happen for a week and I'm trying not to get excited.  The home was built 99 years ago so I'm sure there will be issues found on inspection.  Hopefully they won't be too big and we can move forward...if it all works out then we will be rolling up our sleeves for some renovations.  If not, back to the waiting game!  I'm going to try and be somewhat optimistic about actually closing on this house but until then I'm going to be enjoying coffee with my Mommy!