Category: House & Home

I feel like eating donuts topped with ice cream for dinner. Is that bad?

I guess it’s just stress with the whole home stuff that’s getting to me. I don’t know which end is up anymore. We’re working on getting pre-approved at the moment so we know what our limits are and then we can start actually touring homes instead of driving by like spies. The woman I’m dealing with at the mortgage company is nice. I like her so far.

After we know how much home we can afford, we have to decide which shark, ahem, agent we will be working with.

My coworker’s niece is too pushy for my taste, plus one of the first things she wanted me to do was fax her our pre-qualification letter. Joe doesn’t think any agent should know exactly how much money we can borrow because they will use that to their advantage. I see his point, but I look at it this way – just because I’m approved to borrow x-number of dollars does not mean I will. So if the agent can’t get that, I won’t work with them.

Then there’s the agent who was showing the overpriced home down the block from us. She seemed ok and not very pushy, but something about her reminded me of someone I don’t like.

So that leaves us with the agent my coworker used who used to work at my company. I spoke with him maybe twice. He’s new in the business and he seems pretty nice. But do I want to deal with someone so inexperienced? He’s only completed 10 transactions, which I’m told is a lot for only a year, but what do I know?

There’s just too much info out there and my biggest concern is we’re going to get ripped off and pay too many closing costs and all that jazz. If you know anything at all about me, you know that I hate being ripped off and I’m an extremely frugal person. My one friend calls me Miss Cheap because there’s nothing I hate more than wasting my money. So you can only imagine what a heart attack buying a home is giving me. It’s not so much the home cost, either, just all the other stuff that adds up like application fees and whatnot.

I’m sick of all this already and we’ve only just begun!
*cue Carpenters song*

Does this house look like it’s worth $780,000 to you? Granted, it’s very cute, and a good size (4 beds, 3 baths, 2 car garage, basement) but come on. We drove past it today and I took a photo so I could look it up online. I knew it was going to be out of our price range, but damn, I didn’t realize it would be so far out of it that we could never dream to own it ever in our lives. I guess I just don’t really understand how real estate works. The differences in prices among homes in similar size and within close distance from each other vary so greatly it makes my head spin.

In case you haven’t already figured it out, I’m going to be writing a lot about looking for a new home. So if that kind of stuff is boring to you, please bear with me. At some point we’ll buy a place and you won’t have to read about the hunt anymore. Of course, you’ll have to read about redecorating and whatnot instead.

Anyway … today we went to our local bank to ask about getting pre-approved for a mortgage. Personally, I was already a little peeved by the time we spoke to the banker since I watched her fiddle at her desk, blow her nose, drink some coffee, etc. before she came to help us. Hey, if you don’t want my business, I will gladly take it elsewhere. She explained a few things to us and was ok, but nothing special. We don’t get any special treatment for being existing customers with several accounts and a decent chunk of change in their bank, so what the hell? My coworker uses GMAC Mortgages and I think I might just go with them. It makes me feel more comfortable using a company someone I know has had a positive experience with.

Anyway, I found this place online last night that got me all excited. It’s a townhome about 10 miles from where we live now and it’s huge! It’s over 2200 square feet – 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, huge kitchen, 1 car garage and a full finished basement. In other words, loads of space. About 2.8x what we have now and the monthly mortgage would be nearly the same as what we’re paying in rent. How sweet is that? The interior photos are quite nice and I really want to see it, but it’s for sale by owner so I’m thinking we should hire an attorney before doing anything else, right?

In any case, I really want to see this place. Do you think the owners would be willing to show us it without any proof we can afford it (which I know we can based on several “How Much Can You Afford?” forms I’ve filled out online)?

P.S. When you have looked for homes, what was the room you looked at first? I always look at the kitchen because it’s important to me that it’s large with plenty of counter space and nice cabinets, preferably oak finish in a medium brown color. I can’t stand cherry wood, chocolate-colored wood, or white cabinets. I’m pretty picky, I guess. Plus ideally, the kitchen would have an island. I just love them!

If anyone has a mortgage company to recommend, now is the time to speak up. We’re “shopping around” and there’s way too many choices out there. If you have any recommendations when it comes to a preferred type of mortgage to get, feel free to share that info as well.

We’ve decided instead of going whole-hog and getting a house, we’re going to set our sights on a condo or preferably a townhome for the time being. It’s too costly at this time to find a nice home without breaking the bank. It kinda sucks, but makes good sense too. I don’t want to end up like a few people I know who are in debt and behind on their bills because their mortgage payments are too high.