not to us

About three weeks ago, I went to Realtor.com out of sheer curiosity.  We knew our credit scores were in the dumps.  We knew there was no way for us to get a mortgage.  However, I'd been very (*VERY*) casually keeping my eye on the housing market in Lafayette.  I figured that if we found an amazing deal, we could at least try for it and hope for a miracle.

It was a lazy Saturday, and the kids were napping.  We were visiting my parents and, just to torture myself, I searched in the Terre Haute area first.  The house prices in TH are so much lower than the house prices in Lafayette that it's always good for a little punch in the gut.

After looking through those pictures a bit, I decided to go ahead and see if there was anything new in our area.  I typed in our zip code, our price range, and our minimum number of bedrooms.  As I scrolled through the pictures, one caught my eye.

I couldn't believe it was in our price range.  Five bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, full basement, on a cul-de-sac. 

I clicked the link to see more pictures.  I wanted to know what problem made it possible for this house to be in our price range.

Some features were obviously out of date, but the house looked to be in surprisingly good shape.  I was definitely curious.

On Monday morning, I called our friend Andrew, who deals in real estate, and asked him if he would walk me through the house.  When I got there, Andrew had already been through the house a bit.  He told me that he felt there were some foundation issues.  There were also several cosmetic issues that were immediately apparent.

Despite those issues, when I walked through the house, I just sort of felt like I was home.  Dirty carpets, cracked drywall, missing appliances, and missing switchplates.  Peeling wallpaper, a broken window pane, one bathroom mid-renovation.  Normally all of those things would make me want to tuck tail and run.  That day, however, it just felt like my home. 

I told Andrew that I needed to talk to Mike, but I was definitely still interested.

Later that afternoon, I got a call from Andrew.  He couldn't believe it, but the sellers had just knocked another $13,000 off the list price.

That night, Mike and I went to walk through the house again.  At the end of the walk-through, we decided we wanted to pursue the house and investigate further.

We met Andrew the next day to draw up an offer.  We drafted an exceedingly conservative offer and made it contingent on a good inspection.  We felt that we had an automatic out, because, in our *ahem* professional opinion, there was definitely a major structural issue.

Fast-forward to today:

We were pre-approved for a mortgage with absolutely no issues at all.  (Miraculous)

The sellers accepted our offer, point blank.  (Shockingly Miraculous)

This morning, a structural engineer came to inspect the house.  He has a PhD from Purdue University in Structural Engineering.  He is now a professor at Purdue.  After looking over the exterior and interior of the house, including all the cracks that were causing us concern, he came to the conclusion that the house is structurally sound.  There has definitely been some settling, an amount that is above average, and that settling has caused the cracks and cosmetic issues.  However, he said that he feels the house isn't going anywhere and the foundation is not giving way.  It simply settled more than normal (most likely due to how it was constructed) and has now come to a near rest.  He said there was nothing he would recommend for a contractor to fix.  There is no fix that can/should be made, aside from correcting the cosmetic damage.

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So, we're in shock.  To this point, we feel like God has practically laid this house in our lap and then said, "Use it wisely."  And we're also in shock because...well, we signed a legally binding contract saying that we'd buy this house as long as it didn't have major issues...and we assumed that it had a major issue...so we felt like we had an automatic "out" in case we found something we really didn't like.  And now...well, at this point, there is no major issue.

And so that's how we accidentally bought a house.  LOL!

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The process is no where near finished.  We've still got the "whole house" inspection, which will look for any issues with the house (roof, plumbing, electric, termites, radon, anything, and everything.)  We could find a different problem that makes this process null and void.  We're not finished by any means.

We've simply made a clean jump over the three highest hurdles we thought we'd have to clear.

And we're excited...and nervous...and anxious...and thrilled...and hanging on for the ride!

We appreciate any and all prayers that you'd like to send our way during this time!  :)