THIS FRIDAY! December 2nd, we'll be homeowners. :)
Oh, what a process! Now that it's finally coming to a close, I'm able to look back with more gratitude than frustration. Y'all, let me tell you - we serve an amazing God. And if we hadn't gotten this loan & this house, we would still serve an amazing God! But I want to take a second to do some serious bragging on Him.
Sebastian & I found a cute little house on "accident" back in July when we were no where close to being ready to buy. We had already decided to stay at our apartment for another year, but we thought, "Man, from the listing, this house is the jackpot! If we can get it, lets do it!" So we called a realtor & then a mortgage company she referred us to to be pre-approved. Before we ever even saw the house, we were denied the loan & we worked really hard to do what we had to do to get approved. Every time we thought there was an open door, BAM! Another problem that we'd try to finagle ourselves around. My parents kept telling us, "Don't make it happen! Trust the Lord - if it's suppose to be yours, it will be." When we finally went to look at the house, it was a total dump. Not good at all, & a clear sign from God that this wasn't the house for us!
That's when we decided to move into my parents house once our lease was up. We'd do some more saving & start looking for a house in January.
Well, then we found another house. It wasn't uncommon for me to browse through Zillow in my free time, although we weren't in the market to buy quite yet. On a Saturday afternoon in September, I found this cute little house & scheduled with our realtor to go see it the next day. It was adorable & everything we thought we wanted in a house. We brought our families to see it & then put an offer on it two days later. After the seller hadn't accepted/denied our offer after another two days, I decided to hop back on Zillow, just for fun.
I looked in the same neighborhood every time I got on, but the neighborhood in general was at least $20,000 above out budget. Although I've always wanted to live in this neighborhood (my family lived there for a couple of years before we bought our current house), I knew we couldn't afford it.
Well, the Lord answers prayer. When I got on Zillow that day, there was the cutest brick ranch that had just had a massive price reduction just the day before - putting it in our budget!! I called Sebastian (who was on the way to Richmond) & sent him pictures, then called our realtor & went to see it a few hours later with my Grandaddy. We LOVED it!
Sebastian trusts me an insane amount - he took my word for how good this house was & he decided to retract our offer on the first house. So the entire night he was in Richmond with friends, he was dealing with signatures & emails to get that first offer off the table.
The next day, Sebastian & I went back to the house so he could see it & we put an offer on it, which was accepted the next day. AH!
This is when it got crazy frustrating.
We were pre-qualified for a loan before we made the first offer, but once we had a ratified contract & started the approval process, we learned that we truly weren't qualified for a loan. We should have had to wait four more months, but is anything impossible with God?
Our loan officer, who we often couldn't stand, worked really hard to get us approved. The Lord used him to get us a really great loan with no mortgage insurance, & on top of that, a brand new grant that will be SO helpful (which is why we couldn't close tomorrow like originally planned).
When he called us today to tell us that we were officially closing on our house on Friday, I had a hard time holding back the tears. For months, there's been a huge question mark - would we be approved? Will the loan fall through? Will the contract fall through? Will we lose this house in this perfect neighborhood? But time & time again, I had to tell myself, "Simmer down, Hannah. God is in control! If we don't get the house, there is a reason. If we do get the house, there is a reason. Don't worry about it."
Looking back, I can see that the Lord was in every move. We didn't get pre-approved the first time & we ended up with a much better loan going with a different mortgage company. Our offer wasn't excepted the first time, but God was holding this dream house just for us. We didn't get to close on November 30th, but we're closing two days later which comes with a whole new bundle of blessings.
Y'all, God is SO good! He is blessing us with a house that we in no way deserve. I'm a big ball of emotions & filled with so much gratitude.
Thank you, Lord.
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