God's Hand on Our Home, part 3

Through this entire process, there always seemed to be clear markers.  If the door was closed, we tried another.  If it was cracked, we slowly pushed our way through to see what was on the other side.  Mike and I were curious if we’d qualify for a conventional loan at Navy Federal, the place that denied us not less than a year ago.  We talked about the possibility and went for it.  Why not?  Against Linda’s better judgment, we decided to apply for a parallel loan with Navy Federal while still trying to meet the FHA loan requirements.  Our loan officer at Navy Federal was on top of her game.  Soon, with Mike’s efficiency and persistence, we surpassed the point where we had been with the FHA loan.  This conventional loan, if we were approved, would be a much better route.  We would have to put zero down (compared to 3.5% with FHA), we would have a better interest rate, more flexibility to do the work ourselves after closing, and it just seemed better all the way around. 

The last step for approval involved getting the house appraised.  We didn’t know when the appraiser would do the inspection, but we REALLY wanted to get in there and clean.  Our hope was to make it look decent and presentable so that it would get appraised higher than our offering price.  We pestered Linda to ask the seller if we could get permission to clean before the appraisal.  The seller was worried about liability, so he was very hesitant to allow us on the property without Linda present.  We told Linda we’d sign any papers necessary if we could just get in there and clean.

On April 1, 2013 we got two emails.  One said that an appraiser was set to come out the next morning.  The other said that if we signed a form, we could have access to the house and start cleaning.  I was on a three day field trip with the 7th graders at Kualoa Ranch.  It was Monday afternoon, and I was hiking up the Hakipu’u Ahupua’a, so I literally had to sprint back to camp.  

A view of Chinaman's Hat from the hike

In the valley

At the waterfront, relaxing

Sunrise... this is what I had to leave to go and clean...

I borrowed my friend’s car (bless her), got a speeding ticket coming down from H-3, and had to be back at the Regional Park by 8:00pm when they locked the gate.  On the way to the house I had to stop by American Title and Escrow to sign a notarized paper that gave us permission to clean.  After that, I went to Walmart and purchased cleaning supplies.  Thankfully, we had some help from some friends of ours that night.  Although we weren’t supposed to have anyone else there, they were such a blessing.  The girls went to town on the kitchen and moldy bathrooms while the boys cleared the jungle from the pool!  We worked on making it look presentable for the next day's inspection/appraisal.  All in a day's work!