Surprise!

A few weeks after the lottery ended, I got a call from our realtor. “You have a house!” he exclaimed over the phone. “What? Really?” I was shocked. Come to find out, the original winners did not get their paperwork in on time and so the house went to the runner’s up, which was us! For the next 48 hours we scrambled to sign paperwork, gather documentation and secure financing. HUD does not mess around, so we wanted to make sure we had all the necessary paperwork in order to be qualified.

A few days later brought disappointment, as the HUD asset manager declared that Mike wasn’t qualified to purchase the home because he didn’t meet the GNND requirements. This fired my husband up because although it wasn’t black and white, he DOES qualify. To make a long story short, Mike provided all the necessary documentation and we were deemed qualified to purchase the home as a part of the Good Neighbor Next Door Program.

After quite an emotional ride, we had a contract in hand and could move forward with an inspection and financing to close the deal in 45 days.

Finding a Deal

For the last few years, Mike and I have considered purchasing a home. Considering how we rarely pay full price for anything, we looked for ways to buy a house at a discount. When the market crashed, we considered buying and spent many afternoons debating properties and even almost put an offer in on a tiny place in west Denver. However, we came to our senses and agreed that we should test our luck in the Good Neighbor Next Door Program (GNND). The GNND program is a HUD program designed to assist public service workers in buying homes in revitalization areas. In exchange for living in the property for three years, you get the home for half price. A half price house – we were all over that deal! The catch is that it is a lottery system, so you have to keep entering your name for qualified homes and hope that your name is drawn.

In order to make sure you don’t miss out, everyday you have to check the HUD website. As you can imagine, this becomes addictive. Mike and I entered our names in half a dozen or so houses without luck. Below are some houses that we weren’t awarded.

First Lottery.

Didn’t get this one.

Didn’t get this one either.

Back in May, Mike and I entered our name into two tiny condos. Spending only a few minutes in each one, we deemed them both “livable” and emailed our realtor to enter our name into the lottery. Once again, we were partly relieved and partly disappointed that we didn’t hit the cheap house jackpot. We decided that continuing to live near Wash Park in Denver wasn’t a bad runner’s up prize and that we would try again when the next qualified house showed up.