The Frustrations of Trying to Buy a House

So, Tyler and I started looking for a house in American Falls in early July. We knew that we didn't have a whole lot of time to buy one before we had to be in American Falls for Tyler to start coaching, but school didn't start till September 6, so we thought we had enough time before then. Obviously, we had no idea how frustrating buying a house could be! We went to American Falls with our realtor and looked at about six houses. We looked at this little twin home and actually loved it. We weren't sure if it would be the smartest idea to buy a twin home, but the house came with all the appliances, including washer and dryer, a/c, and a fully fenced in yard; all things that we were hoping for. The owner of the twin home also offered to sell us her bedroom set in her guest room, and a couch and love seat for a really good deal. We have no couches and this room had a living room and a family room we would need to furnish, so that would really help us out a ton! We were so excited about this place. We took my parents to look at it, and they seemed to think it was a pretty good place for our first home, but that the price was a little too high. We gave the lady an offer, which was lower than her asking price, but still very reasonable. She came back with a counter offer $5,000 over her asking price! Who does that!?! We countered again, still not at her asking price, but what we thought was top dollar for what the place was worth. Well, she got really sick and decided to take her house off the market. So we moved on...
One day, Tyler and I decided to just drive around American Falls on our own, looking for For Sale signs. It is a small enough place that we saw just about every single house for sale in town. We called our realtor and gave him a list of ten or so houses we wanted to see. We did not like any of them! At this point, we were actually really happy that the twin home didn't work out, because we decided we would so much rather have our very own home, not a house attached to someone elses. The houses we looked at the second time around all had horrible basements that felt more like dungeons than living spaces. On the way out of town, I told the realtor about a house I had seen on line that I forgot to list for him to show us. He said we could just drive by it and see if we could take a look at it. The owners weren't home, and their realtor said we could just go on in. It was a really nice, new, big house, in the best neighborhood! We loved it. It was for sale for much cheaper than it was worth, but we found out that was because the owners were losing it. They were just hoping they could sell it for what they had left on the loan, before it got foreclosed on them. We hurried and put in an offer, and within minutes of them recieving the offer, they got the call that the house was being foreclosed on immediately. So, that didn't work out. I was really bummed about that one.
The searched started again. This time, I got on craigslist to see if there was anything on there that we hadn't seen yet, and we found two homes that looked very promising. One was a cute, blue, cottage-like-home right across from my school. Well, the outside was cute. The inside was awful with a dugeon basement. The other house was way out of town, out in the country. When we pulled up to it, we weren't too impressed at first. It sat on an acre lot, but the yard hadn't really been taken care of. The house itself looked good, but the yard was very unappealing. But then we walked inside. It was beautiful! It was a two story home, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms. It was a very old home, but had been completely remodeled, down to the studs. The owners told us all about the house and everything they had done with it in the remodel. We had found our house! It was a great price, especially for how big it and the lot was. They told us the house had appraised for $25,000 more than the asking price, but that they weren't really trying to make money off of it. So we put in an offer, they accepted, and we started getting everything ready. We could not have been more excited! The only down side was that the home had renters in it and the owners wanted to give them sixty days to move out. That put our closing date on October 1st. Since we had to be in American Falls by the middle of August, we did not know what we were going to do. We called around to every apartment complex between American Falls and Pocatello, but nobody would let us rent month to month, with a pet. I got on craigslist again, since it had helped us find our home, and looked up rentals. One of the houses we had looked at the first time around was now up for rent. We called the owners, and they hadn't had anybody interested in renting or buying the place at all. So he agreed to let us rent his house for a month and a half, with our pet, but for a steep price. We really didn't have any other choice though. But at least we had a place to stay and everything finally felt like it was working out!
We sort of drug our feet with moving the process of buying the home along, since we couldn't get in till October 1st. After a couple weeks, we finally got the inspection. That changed everything! I knew a man from my home ward growing up that did home inspections. I am so grateful to him! He did us the biggest favor of our lives! After he did the inspection, we went through the house with him and he showed us everything he had found. And boy, did he find a lot! He saw that the foundation was just stacked lava rock and would not have passed inspection for a loan. He found so many things that proved that the remodel was obviously not inspected or approved by the proper authorities. There is just too much to even mention that he found wrong with the place! The renters were there and they told us their power bills got up to $600 in the winter, and $300 in the summer and there isn't even a/c in the house! There was no access to the attic, so we couldn't even see if the house was insulated at all! They told us that in the winter they would catch about five mice a day, that the toilets were plumbed with hot water, and that one bedroom didn't have any heat. Then we learned that all the bathroom fixtures were the renters and they planned on taking all of them with them, so we would not have had mirrors, towel racks, or toilet paper holders in both bathrooms! We were so glad the renters were there to tell us these things!
As we were leaving the house after the inspection, we knew that we needed to get out of buying that house. It has not been an easy process. The owners, who seemed so honest and respectable, have turned out to be pretty shady characters! They are now fighting us for the earnest money. They are millionare farmers, with a million dollar home, and we are poor teachers barely able to scrape by, but they want our $300! I have never been more frustrated than I am with trying to buy a stupid house!
After all this, we checked back into the forecloser home that we liked, but it isn't going to be back on the market for quite a while. We found out that a house we had looked at was sold for $30,000 less than asking price, so it gave us hope and we expanded our search. Last week, we looked at a home that I saw online many times, but it was out of our price range so I never considered it. We decided to just walk through it, and it was our favorite house of all that we looked at, by far! We are currently in the process of negotiation with the owners, but I don't want to jinx our chances, so I'm not going to say any more about that now. All I can say is wwish us luck!!