Home Buying Struggles

My hubby and I have had 7 failed attempts at buying a home lol.  I thought I would write this to maybe encourage some of you that have also had such struggles and also to share all that I have learned. 

Our first attempt was a double wide mobile home in Midland on an acre of land.  But our payment would have been $1600 a month and the land didn't look very pretty.  Plus we were concerned about Ben's job lasting.  This was about 2 months before the oil boom crashed recently, so praise God we didn't get that. 

The I started looking into houses that we could get a USDA loan on out by my mom here in Austin.  We then found LGI homes in Jarrell.  We were all set up for that but then they decided Ben needed to get an Austin job first.  So we got an apartment here instead.  Then we were set up in Manor but Ben wanted to switch it to Kyle, TX.  But then our loan didn't work out.  Something about Ben's income not qualifying for that area.  There are all kinds of rules when it comes to loans. 

Then I looked into some other options.  DR Horton houses in Austin's colony, which could have worked but Ben didn't feel the area was very safe.  Then I looked at DR Horton homes in Hutto.  We almost qualified but our income to debt ratio didn't work for the home we wanted. 

And so now we are looking into getting a used home.  We are planning to use a USDA loan on a house in Hutto that will be more affordable.  I think we just needed to figure out also what we want our monthly payment to be and what city we want to be in forever.  Big decision obviously.  But the main thing that's great is Hutto, TX is the 4th safest city in the entire U.S.  woohoo!

The great thing about USDA loans for any who don't know is it's zero down and it covers the closing costs.  All that's needed is the earnest money which is one percent of the house amount.  Pretty cool.  It has to be a home in a rural area.  It may seem unwise to not have a down payment, but after calculating things I realized our payment would only be about $40 better per month even if we paid like 10k down.  So down payments don't help a whole lot. 

So a used house might work out for us soon, hopefully.  Please pray that we can get something.  If not we might get an apartment again, but it would be nice if we could finally get settled somewhere permanently.  May God open doors for us.  May God bless you all!