First House!

The only beneficial outcome of my car accident in Dec 07 was that I was able to use the settlement as a down payment on my first home in Bend. It's not what I envisioned for myself but I think it was a good choice and a nice first home, especially in my price range, and hopefully will be a good investment over the long run. It's a 2005-built craftsman style, 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, 1400 sq feet, open floor plan, natural gas fireplace, vaulted ceilings, garage, a very wide entry hall, mostly fenced yard, steepest driveway I've EVER seen. It's in a developing area and most of the neighbors are quiet and the ones I've met are nice.

It was a foreclosure that had been rented and the renters were obviously upset to leave -- obviously because they broke most of the appliances and punched holes in walls and doors and destroyed the backyard including a Juniper tree that once grew there.

Ugh, the whole process was a pain. Before they would let me close, I had to:
1) pay for a pest/dry rot/wet rot inspection because the appraiser thought there was an issue with the bathroom floor
(this was after I'd paid and coordinated for a plumber to come de-winterize the house so a general inspector could inspect the house, and paid and coordinated for the inspector to come out -- which was for my own knowledge/peace of mind, obviously not required -- and paid and coordinated for the plumber to then re-winterize the house)
2) replace the entire front door because it had been kicked in and the frame was broken, a safety concern that is the responsibility of the home buyer in a bank-owned foreclosure apparently
3) replace the bathroom floor because the pest/dry rot/wet rot inspector found rot in the floorboards next to the tub
4) pay for a pest/dry rot/wet rot inspector to come back out to verify the work was done
5) coordinate for the appraiser to come back out to verify the work
6) replace the cracked kitchen window because FHA decided this was a safety concern in case someone fell into the window (so I had to coordinate for the window guy to come measure, then to come install) -- it was a small, rounded hole in the inner pane of the double paned window (like a bb hit it) and a flush crack... definitely not a safety hazard, but I was going to eventually replace it
7) coordinate for the appraiser come back out to verify the work

Each of these coordinating requires calling my realtor and coordinating a time that she can meet whomever the person doing the work is to let them into the house. She was really flexible but it was still a pain to try to schedule things. Luckily, once we replaced the front door, because I had to buy the door and knobs, I made copies of the key before giving it to her to put in the lockbox, so I actually had a key to the house that I was in the process of buying...

Anyhow, the whole homebuying process was a HUGE pain and took much longer than I expected. Especially having to go through FHA for my loan which I did not want to do but was forced to because my credit was really poor because PeaceHealth (who did my physical therapy) turned me over to collections despite the fact that I'd told them repeatedly that it was a result of a car accident for which I was not at fault and that I was waiting for the settlement. They could've billed my insurance company, which was later reimbursed during the settlement, but apparently they just couldn't wait. So. AND FHA made me write tons of letters explaining various things: where was I getting the $$ for the house, why did I have more than one address in 2008 (because my ex and I broke up so I moved home, then moved to Texas, then moved back home), why I quit my job in May and what I did, why I had paychecks from Texas, where the $$ from a certain deposit I made in August came from, etc... I thought they were about to ask for a kidney or my first born child.

I made an offer the day before Thanksgiving, signed closing documents Jan 13, but didn't get the keys til Jan 20th or so (when I was gone on a business trip/vacay to HI) because the documents had been notorized incorrectly and had to be re-done. There were so many friggin parties to deal with -- my realtor, the selling agent, my mortgage broker, Wells Fargo which owned the house, the law firm hired by Wells Fargo to manage the sale, the title company... I'm thankful that's over and would seriously debate on buying a bank-owned foreclosure again...

Hallway leading to living room (from front door). It's an open floor plan in the living room/kitchen/dining room...

Living room (from dining room)


Living room (and part of kitchen) from dining room


Kitchen (from living room)


Dining room (from kitchen)


A little love from the previous renters (just one of several problems with the house)


Front bedroom that I want to make an office


Main hallway bathroom (floor was rotted near tub so we had to replace before closing)


Master

Master


Master bath only has a shower and a pretty small closet :(


Back of house, nice southern exposure


The backyard is completely dead, but fenced (mostly)

I just bought new appliances. The improvements list is long and includes painting, gutters, sheet rock repairs, landscaping the entire backyard which is currently a mud pit... on and on. Ahh the joys of home ownership.