Tacoma Home and Garden Show

 We decided to check out the Tacoma Home and Garden Show today, it was disappointing at best. We went hoping to gather ideas and check out new products... we ended up with a tour of the same stuff at every booth. Instead of leaving inspired we left with the same ideas we gathered searching our local hardware store, with some ideas of prices and $30dollars lighter....Blarg! The only reason it was not a total waste time is that we did end up leaving with some new really cool wire skewers for shiskabobs!

The process of getting all the mortgage loan paperwork!

In the process of searching for our first home we were a bit naive to the amount of paperwork we would need to have collected! Which if you don't know is A LOT....enter stress now! Included in this list are the past 2 years of W2's, all pages of the past two years tax returns, two months of official bank statements, quarterly asset account statements, copies of social security cards and drivers licenses, and the name of home owner insurance agent.  After you submit all of these it is likely that you will need to submit supporting documents for one or several things...including copies of any checks deposited over $100 dollars into your bank account. With the understanding that we are loaning a lot of money we understood the need for these necessary documents just didn't realize quite how extensive the process would be!

The counter offer!

We put our first offer in on the house on Saturday January 14th! We found out on January 17th that there had been two offers put in on the house, so we had the option to counter offer or hope that our first offer would remain highest and best. We had already decided that if this occurred we would counter and what number would be our highest and best offer. During this whole offer/counter offer process we got hit with a snow/ice/wind storm that resulted in several people without power and add in the fact that the home was a Fannie May/banked owned home... which resulted in waiting what seemed like a forever, sleep deprived, anxiety ridden... extremely long eight days! Finally, on the 24th we got the word that we were highest and best! Wahoo!!

The house search begins!

After searching several websites, for months on end we finally decided to reply to an add on craigslist and schedule a viewing! Which led us to our amazing Realtor Dee Owens with Remax! Upon scheduling a day to go out and view several homes that met our criteria she also suggested a great mortgage company to start the pre-approval process! Mind you we had started this process twice with two unnamed banks and found the process completely discouraging! Not this time, Mick with Cascade Valley Mortgage made the whole process as easy as possible (for those of you who have purchased a home, know this is quite the process... including tons and tons of gathering paperwork) Within a few days we were pre-approved and now had an idea for the price range we should be looking in!  With this in mind we set out on a rainy almost snowing Saturday! We visited two homes in Renton that didn't really strike our fancy... but then we went to OUR house in Maple Valley and another after that and then back to our house!  After visiting the house the second time we went back to the Remax office and decided to make an offer on the house! One of the most nerve racking, exciting, anxiety risen things we have ever done!