Update on House Hunt

For those of you not friends with me on Facebook, here's our awesome news:

WE GOT APPROVED FOR A MORTGAGE!

Our approval letter came via email along with a lot of disclaimers about the rate we'd been quoted and how taxes and home owner's insurance would change once we'd actually bought a property. This lender had laid out all our costs for us and we could see exactly how paying this up front would reduce this down the line, etc.

Andy and I had a minor financial panic attack the night before owing to my options for grad school, which will pretty much take me out of stage managing except during the summer. We both interpreted this to mean I would only bring in the income from one stage management gig a year since when I was looking for part time work a few years ago, it was nearly impossible to find something. Now the economy is shifting and I'll be looking for work during Christmas, when most places are desperate for the extra help. And of course I'm a gem of an employee so whoever hires me will most likely keep me, right? Right.

But seeing the numbers in black and white, that we'd still be ok, if pinched, if I didn't work was great. Even at the higher price range, we would be spending less on the mortgage than on our rent and we'd be getting the great tax refund every year.

We have been looking at the listings our realtor  has sent us and have been keeping tabs on Redfin. We love Redfin since they not only have the typical stuff you'd find in listings like specs on the house and pictures, but they also have a history of the property so you can see how often it's been listed, how often it sold and for what amount. This helped us deduce what properties were too good to be true (A $120,000 4 BR w/ huge property? Ah, 12 inspections that all resulted with it being put back on the market. Must be something faulty there).

Andy and I both found a property we were excited about. We checked it out online and I was working really hard not to fall in love with anything since I thought that would incite the karma gods. I was working on detachment when Andy had to go anger the gods and describe, in detail, how we could take this already nice property and make it even nicer. We started mentally drafting plans for fruit trees and fences and hot tubs.

Well, you know how this goes. The status went from "active" to "pending" on Friday so it's pretty much gone. Ugh.

We have some other properties we're excited about, but are not falling in love with yet. Rule #1 for buyers is always "Be prepared to walk away".

We start touring houses today and may find the house. We're anxious to move and start this next chapter, but also know time is on our side.

More on Wednesday!