Holidays are comin'

This is the first holiday in a long time I have not been completely beside myself with fear on "how are we going to handle the holidays financially?". My husband gets laid off from November through March'ish, it's a yearly thing. Although I enjoy him being home because it takes a lot of pressure off me, it is an obvious strain on the pocket book. And even though we don't have a ton of money in the bank I know we'll make it just fine. Our bills are being paid off slowly and we just are not arguing as much about money. I guess what I'm trying to get at is this real estate "thing" is getting our family where we need to be. As I stated before I still have to do my goals for next year but I've been thinking about them a lot. I'll sit down one day soon and write them out.

Okay, on to business. We are set to close on the condos December 12th. I got a call from my buyers lender and it looks like everything is good to go. I really hope it doesn't fizzle at the last moment. My buyers told me their bank knows EXACTLY what the situation is so I am not expecting any bumps (famous last words).

We got an accepted offer on the 2nd set of condos also. I am paying a bit more per condo ($70k) but the spread is so great I just had to pick them up. With these I am going to do one of two things. But first I am going to talk to my loan officer and see if their bank accepts down payment assistance programs for down payments (i.e. Hart or Nehemiah). If they do I am going to advertise a lease/purchase with 20% down payment assistance. Hopefully this should get my phone ringing. If the bank does NOT accept this form of payment I am going to call around. If I can't find a bank I will just advertise a lease purchase at a lower price. My initial intent with these properties was to lease them anyway to have monthly income. We'll have to see how it goes...

We also got an accpeted offer on another property. I'm not crazy about it and haven't faxed in the addendum. I'm not sure why? The numbers are great and it's in a nice area (the same neighborhood where I had several people wanting to purchase one of my other properties). It has kind of a weird lay out and it is only 2 bedrooms. I'm going to hold off on faxing the addendum until Monday or Tuesday and see what they say. Maybe I'll try to get it cheaper?

The numbers:
ARV: $99k
Repairs: $15k
PP: $40k

It is a Fannie property so I can only resell at $48k. Another reason I am a bit apprehensive is b/c if I cannot find a buyer I'm not sure I'll be able to get a loan with my mortgage gal. She is pretty adament (sp?) about only doing one property at a time.

Oh well, a good problem to have I suppose. I won't know anything until next week.

Soooo, everyone have a great Thanksgiving!!