Bumps, bumps and more bumps

AAAAAAAAAAAA Fafard. We hate you. If anyone out there is considering buying a Fafard built home, don't. (I know there are SO many people that read this...)

I won't even get into the issues we've had with our place since we moved in but now Fafard is biting us in the butt even as we're trying to leave! Come on, what did we ever do to you??

As you know, we've been getting some interest in our place, and rumor had it that an offer was coming in, and possibly even two! Last week, Margot the Agent got a funny call from a mortgage broker about our place. This was the broker that was trying to write an offer for a couple, while we were having another couple take a second look at our house. Our first thought was, awesome...bidding war!! But no.

Turns out...FAFARD (jerk) just didn't bother to get our unit FHA approved. Which means....Unless you have 20% to put down, you can't buy the place. Well, you can, but you get a crazy high interest rate. Who wants that??

NO ONE! Know how we know? Because the offer was pulled off the table before we even saw it, the second-look couple bailed and a third couple that was coming for their first time cancelled on us, too.

This is a disaster. If you just happen to have about $50K lying around, you aren't going to buy a crappy little condo. You're going to find an FHA approved house that's twice the size, and move in there.

Luckily, we can apply to be FHA approved, but it can take awhile. Margot the Agent is on it! She's going to apply and thinks we can get approved in a few weeks. She also told us that the rumor around real estate land, is that no one gets a good deal at America Blvd. Fantastic.

My thought is to pull the condo off the market and wait until we are FHA approved. Then, relist but with BIG BOLD LETTERS that say right up at the top "FHA APPROVED!!!"  Maybe that will help us.

We also hit 2 potential snags on the new home front. We got our Purchase and Sale agreement and sent it off to our lawyer...who coincidentally, owned a Farfard condo and sold it as fast as he could because he HATED it, and bought a Richmond Development house (Steve the Builder owns Richmond Development) and LOVES it. Howard the Lawyer was very pleased to help us follow his path in home ownership.

Anyway, Howard the Lawyer noticed some odd wording in the P&S. Something about 'hold-backs'. Since our new home is going to be done in January, we won't have a driveway or lawn yet. Neither of those can be done in the cold (freezing) weather, so it's in the contract that they will finish in the spring. But...according to Howard, if there's a 'hold-back' the bank will want the value of that 'hold-back' available. So if you assume a full driveway and landscaping costs about $20K, the bank expects there to be $20K available....FROM THE BUYER. Us. hmmm. Definitely won't have an extra $20K lying around. I guess this is to protect the building in case we default on the mortgage before we get the work done.

Howard is going to reword it, so the 'hold-back' is the responsibility of the builder. John the Agent is unsure if Steve the Builder will sign that. So we might have to either find 20K somewhere (right, like I just left it under the couch or something) or push the closing back to spring so it's all done at once. Annoying!

There is also a rumor floating around that Steve won't sign a P&S with a contingency plan. Ours would be contingent upon sale of the condo. John doesn't think Steve will go for that. But...we met with Steve and told him our entire situation and never ONCE did he say there would be a problem with a P&S if we weren't quite sold yet. We'll be pretty angry if suddenly now he says no.

Lots of issues coming up! Geez.  We didn't think this would be easy but still, this is a bit ridiculous!

Really, I blame the whole thing on Fafard.