4 Days.

Enter anxiety stage right.

Of course that is not to say that I have not been anxious the entire time it has taken to reach this point. Now, however, anxiety is taking steroids. There is so much that has to be done and so little time to do it in. I feel like what a race horse must feel like when its loaded into the starting gates and waiting those excruciatingly slow seconds until the gate opens. All the power and drive to run contained into a tiny space just waiting to spring forth when that gate opens. Its the same anxious desire to get out of a confined space and go, but instead of waiting for a gate to open I am waiting for papers to be ready to sign. I have lists upon lists upon lists of things that need to be done but I have to wait 4 days to even begin. Its absolutely torture.

Four days both seems like an eternity and does not seem like nearly enough time. In the short term I have 4 days to packup my hotel room and perform a game of real life Tetris to pack my van to minimize trips. Ideally I will succeed in doing this in 2 trips.

Have I mentioned I haven’t actually seen the place in person?

Ha, that line absolutely floors people. But at the time we were looking the house market was going insane. Houses were selling in days, way over asking, with all kinds of contingency waivers like no inspections. Unfortunately those types of terms do not work when you are working with a VA loan since this loan has a built in inspection requirement called the Minimum Property Requirements. Especially when you are looking to buy land rather than a small house in the suburbs. Now the VA MPRs are not super strict, and its certainly not a fully inspection, but MANY a house has and would fail them. They look for major issues with the house like roof issues, leaky basements, safe and operational HVAC/Septic/Etc, no mold or termites, and so on.

Now you’d think most houses for sale can meet those minimum things but actually… no. The houses we ended up at the end of the process with was actually not even on the list of houses when I started looking. I have 5 properties that ended up not being able to pass the MPR before I found this one. Roof issues and termites are far more of an issue than I ever expected. And because the housing market was so hot… sellers had zero inclination to fix ANYTHING. I cannot even begin to explain how sad i was that the first choice house’s roof was bad, because I super loved that house and property. If it had been an option I would have closed anyway with the idea of fixing the roof once I got into the place but the loan would never have approved the house to go to closing.

That first choice house was not even the first property we looked at, just the first one with a house on it. The original plan was to move to a property that had zero structures on it. In fact it was that property we left Tampa for. But when it was time to sit down at the closing table the sellers backed out and decided to keep their property leaving us scrambling to find something else. To say I was heartbroken when the sellers backed out would be an understatement. I loved that property. I had walked that property. So… I was less wanting to go visit a property again before I got the loan closed because I could not handle that heartbreak. Couple that with the fact that sales were so fast paced and it made sense to put in an offer and close without seeing the property first.

Now, when I say without seeing the property I mean in person. I have photos. Photos galore. And I have google satellite view, county gis overhead views. I have very recent photos taken by the appraiser. But in reality I also did not really care about the house, I was more interested in the land. I needed a piece of land that had a house that could pass the VA inspection. As the house was less then 30 years old I suspected it would pass the test. Especially since the HVAC was just installed the year before AND the roof had been redone in the last 5 years (and it was metal). Even so, it did not pass the first time. It needed some major repairs (I consider anything that cost more then 1k major) that I did not agree needed to be done but the seller was willing to get them done and the deal pressed on.

I am not a super picky person when it comes to housing. I have had friends confused by the whole not seeing the house first part of it because of silly things like how do I know I like the flow of the house or that it is in good condition. Firstly, I do not understand that word… flow? Like where the rooms are? Who the hell cares? Is that a thing? I guess it is but its not on my list of cares. If I ABSOLUTELY hate the way the house is for some reason I will just rent it out and put the really nice mobile we were going to put on the empty land on it instead. For me if its got a working bathroom, a kitchen, walls, and a roof that keeps water out I am good as long as its got acreage lol. As for the good condition question, because a certified licensed appraiser went out and looked at it (twice) and took photos and it passed the MPR. I know zero about house sit so me going to look at it would not result in me knowing what is and is not in good condition. What it would do however is make me get super attached and then if ANYTHING happened to kill the deal, with with a loan that has to go through a bunch of people to get approved including the damn goberment is likely, I would be extremely upset. I mean I will still be mad now but if I go out there and fall in love like with the first place… well I will get super depressed.

So the day papers are signed and keys are handed over will be my first visit to the place. And I am fine with that.