*Knock on wood*

I think we might actually be getting a house.

Let's back up - so on Monday I get a call from my realtor saying that the offer we have on the short sale has come back accepted, so long as we close on Wednesday. We laugh and laugh and then have to consider if it's at all doable. While we're doing that - the other offer we have comes back favorably. It's a counter offer for a slightly increased sales price, but nothing else changed. We joked, when we were writing out the purchase agreement on the second house, about how funny it would be if they both came back on the same day. Who knew they'd come back within an hour of each other.

So first the short sale - we really love the house, it needs a lot less work to move in, but...it's a rougher neighborhood, and that's not even addressing the whole "gotta close in two days" b.s. Do we like this house enough to try to move heaven and hell to get it? It's a long shot.

Second, the foreclosed house. It needs more work to be move-in ready, and it needs a lot more work overall cosmetically. However, the neighborhood is the best we've looked in, and with just a bit of work our house could fit right in with the rest of them. With the other one, we'd always be surrounded by a mix of properties - some really well kept, some in disrepair. Plus, this one doesn't have a ridiculous stipulation of closing in two days (two days!).

Justin and I talked about it and finally were able to let the short sale house go. There's just no way anyone could close a loan in that time, especially not the hulking machine that is Wells Fargo (more on that in a sec), and why take a long shot when we have an almost sure thing right in front of us? If just the foreclosed house offer had come back on Monday, we would have been ecstatic and proceeded with it. So that's what we do.

Wells Fargo...oh, WF, you insanely large, crazy slow mortgage company. We have a closing date in mid October, and immediately I hear from my loan officer that Wells Fargo is taking 30 days minimum to close loans. These are standard loans, not renovation loans or anything too special. Sure, it's an FHA loan, but that just means the underwriting process on the house is a little more involved. Having worked in WF's appraisal underwriting department, I know that it doesn't take *that* much longer to process. They are just so slow and full of files that they take forever to do things.

Since we have a set close by date with our purchase agreement, and a $100 per diem owed to the seller if we don't make that closing date, it was time to find another lender.