searching for home

Jacob and I are looking to buy a house, preferably before the $8000 tax credit expires in April. There are several barriers still in our way.

1. Our lease on our apartment does not end until August.

2. We have ZERO money for a down payment.

3. Jake's bank says in order to approve us for a loan, we need to have and show that we can maintain at least 5% (or 10%? I don't remember) of said loan in the bank for 2 months.

4. We are young, inexperienced, and don't know what we're doing.

Why are these barriers, you ask? Well aside from the obvious, we found our house already. I saw it on Craigslist on Saturday. We went and saw it on Sunday (we were one of 3 showings... and it was only listed Friday). We fell in love even more with it after we saw it, spent Sunday night measuring our stuff, deciding where to put things, and deciding how we would expand our living quarters so we could stay there forever. Then we found out the whole 5% thing, or in the house's case, a little under $10,000 would need to be in our bank accounts until February on Monday. The house will not still be on the market in February- it's that fantastic.

Heartbroken

... but still not without hope.

I am in contact via email with the homeowner of the house, and I'm trying to come up with a crafty, yet noncommittal (maybe?) way of asking her if there have been any offers yet, and, just for good measure, to please please please keep it on the market until we can get approved.

Another interesting twist. Jake was told about the site called www.zillow.com. This site gives you SO much information about virtually every house out there, or at least in the KC area. We found out that the "zestimate" which more or less means the actual market value of the house, is almost $40,000 less than the house is listed for. So, in theory- we have grounds to put in an offer significantly lower than the asking price, and a good chance at knocking several thousand dollars off the final price.

YAY right? Yes, except we still do not have at least 5% of the loan in the bank. However, payday is Friday for both of us- but that is chump change compared to $10,000 we need. A cop and a social worker aren't exactly big money making professions.

However, thanks to zillow, we are now able to search all over KC for houses that are not only for sale, in our price range, in the areas we wouldn't mind living, but also find out whether or not they are asking too little or too much for the house. And we found several adorable little houses that would be perfect for us.

But they aren't "our house." Jake seems to have gotten over the fact that we might not get that house. I haven't. I'm fairly sure I'll be devastated. Already looking at houses is not as much fun as it was before we found "our house." Nothing else can measure up in my mind.

There might be something wrong with me.

Anyway, if anyone has some stellar strategies for saving $10,000 really quickly, or wish to make a donation to the Ashley and Jacob's down payment fund, let me know. :)