Yes, still alive

But not exactly happy.

I've dropped off the blogosphere once again, but house shopping had a lot to do with it.  As in, any free time I had on my computer was devoted to searching Trulia, Zillow, MLS, for sale by owner....you get the idea.

I won't bore you with the unexciting process of identifying a house, but the punch line is hubby and I found a great place!  A 2bed, 2 bath modern-ish, efficient green house!  That we can afford!  That we can bike to work from!!  It's actually an earth-bermed home, meaning it's built into a hillside.  Imagine a house with a full walk-out basement, then chop off the top floor and make the front of the house 1/5 stories tall with floor to ceiling windows.  Nice, eh?

Decision made, we made and offer, came to a reasonable agreement, got a ratified contract and applied for a loan.  So far, so good!

Until the "unique" house didn't qualify for the loan.

Seriously, not me and hubby - we're super qualified.  The house didn't qualify, because being so different, it was impossible to find similar comparable properties to determine an accurate market appraisal.  There are specific guidelines laid out by Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac about comparables/appraisal stuff, and if the house doesn't meet them, then you basically can't get any USDA, FHA, etc. mortgage.  There may be other loan types that could still work, but they are way more expensive (as in, like 1.5% higher interest rate).

So we had to cancel the contract today.

We're starting the hunt again and not giving up, but I'm starting to feel like karma is catching up with me.  I've been so lucky with finding nice, unique, affordable places to rent with great landlords.  It's like payback now that we can't manage to snag a nice, unique, affordable place to buy.  Ugh.  I'm totally depressed about it - this place was by far the coolest we'd found.  I honestly don't feel like looking for some place else, but the cramped apartment living is pretty good motivation.

This probably isn't the most exciting update, but I thought you guys deserved something. Off to bed so I'll be bright-eyed for 8am class tomorrow.