So I bought a house.
Well, Mike and I bought it together. But still...a house. Of my own, that my parents don't have any say (or money) in.
When I was in California the last week of February, I'd already been obsessively stalking the realty listings because I wanted to buy a house soon. Mike and I had our down payment fund, it was in the right place for 20% of what we could comfortably afford, and our credit was finally good enough (read: existed, instead of having paid cash for everything forever) that we'd qualified for a loan we could, again, comfortably afford.
On March 4 I saw a listing for the townhouse around the corner from where we currently live. It's a 3-bed, 2.5-bath, 1830 sq ft on two floors, whereas ours is a 2-bed, 2-bath, 1300 sq ft on three floors, the first of which is an awful staircase (and a coat closet. Nothing else!). The listing was for $215,000--very affordable and only $10K more than my parents paid for this one a few years ago, for lots of extra space. (It went up about 2 years ago but is now worth $205 again, and so my dad isn't willing to sell it anyway, nor do I want to stay in it forever.) I called the listing agent that night (9pm EST--and she got back to me right away, score a point for her) and scheduled a showing for when I got back, on Monday the 7th.
Monday I went in with Mike and his mother (both a lawyer and well-versed in the buying of houses) and we looked at it. Huge and relatively lovely, with a bunch of scuff marks that could be easily painted over, with brand-new carpeting (the carpet is a big issue with all the cats we have, if it's new it's less likely they'll pee on it to cover other animal odors).
The layout is a little strange--you walk into the living room on the 2nd floor, with the dining room and kitchen and powder room down the hall. There's also a carpeted room right off the kitchen that I would think is where you'd put a kitchen table, but I've never seen such a room carpeted before? Not a big deal in any case. Then, you walk down a set of stairs (not smack dab in front of the door, thank goodness) to the "basement" floor, which has the second full bath, two smaller bedrooms, washer and dryer and utility closet, and the master bedroom, with a master (full) bath and walk-in closet. Oh, and there's a deck outside the living room visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows, and underneath it is a concrete patio that you can see through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows in the bedroom.
Tuesday we put in an offer for $198,000. The sellers are the surviving children of the woman who died there (meh, someone's probably died everywhere, right? And it's not like she died in the bed I'm going to be sleeping in) and there's 5 of them and every conversation the realtor has is like telephone: call 1, she has to call 2, then they call 3, etc. They rejected our offer right away and told her they didn't want to sell for less than $212. Apparently at this point she and her manager had a heart-to-heart with them, about whether they actually want to sell, or whether they want to sell AT THIS PRICE. They gave us, on Wednesday, a real counter-offer of $206,500 (for those with quick memories, that's only $1500 more than the 2+2 is worth at this point) and we took it.
Home inspection was Friday and he only found a few minor issues, most of which the seller fixed immediately (no GFCI in the kitchen, slow drain in the tub) and some of which the HOA will be dealing with (water under the patio, replacement of main water shut-off valve) before we move in. In any case, nothing I have to deal with.
Tuesday, Mike and I signed lots of paperwork that said how much money we have and how much we're willing to pay every month. We ended up with a 15-year mortgage that is just under the limit of how much we can pay easily every month, with a much better interest rate than the 30-year we were offered.
Now...we wait. Closing is April 18th, and until then the only thing that can really go wrong is the mortgage not being approved for some reason. In that case, we get back our $6000 deposit on the house and try to fix the issue before we look for another one.
But really, I'm pretty sure--I HAS A HOUSE!
And I will have my own knitting and crafting room. (What? I can't have a post with NO mention of knitting at all...)
When I was in California the last week of February, I'd already been obsessively stalking the realty listings because I wanted to buy a house soon. Mike and I had our down payment fund, it was in the right place for 20% of what we could comfortably afford, and our credit was finally good enough (read: existed, instead of having paid cash for everything forever) that we'd qualified for a loan we could, again, comfortably afford.
On March 4 I saw a listing for the townhouse around the corner from where we currently live. It's a 3-bed, 2.5-bath, 1830 sq ft on two floors, whereas ours is a 2-bed, 2-bath, 1300 sq ft on three floors, the first of which is an awful staircase (and a coat closet. Nothing else!). The listing was for $215,000--very affordable and only $10K more than my parents paid for this one a few years ago, for lots of extra space. (It went up about 2 years ago but is now worth $205 again, and so my dad isn't willing to sell it anyway, nor do I want to stay in it forever.) I called the listing agent that night (9pm EST--and she got back to me right away, score a point for her) and scheduled a showing for when I got back, on Monday the 7th.
Monday I went in with Mike and his mother (both a lawyer and well-versed in the buying of houses) and we looked at it. Huge and relatively lovely, with a bunch of scuff marks that could be easily painted over, with brand-new carpeting (the carpet is a big issue with all the cats we have, if it's new it's less likely they'll pee on it to cover other animal odors).
The layout is a little strange--you walk into the living room on the 2nd floor, with the dining room and kitchen and powder room down the hall. There's also a carpeted room right off the kitchen that I would think is where you'd put a kitchen table, but I've never seen such a room carpeted before? Not a big deal in any case. Then, you walk down a set of stairs (not smack dab in front of the door, thank goodness) to the "basement" floor, which has the second full bath, two smaller bedrooms, washer and dryer and utility closet, and the master bedroom, with a master (full) bath and walk-in closet. Oh, and there's a deck outside the living room visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows, and underneath it is a concrete patio that you can see through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows in the bedroom.
Tuesday we put in an offer for $198,000. The sellers are the surviving children of the woman who died there (meh, someone's probably died everywhere, right? And it's not like she died in the bed I'm going to be sleeping in) and there's 5 of them and every conversation the realtor has is like telephone: call 1, she has to call 2, then they call 3, etc. They rejected our offer right away and told her they didn't want to sell for less than $212. Apparently at this point she and her manager had a heart-to-heart with them, about whether they actually want to sell, or whether they want to sell AT THIS PRICE. They gave us, on Wednesday, a real counter-offer of $206,500 (for those with quick memories, that's only $1500 more than the 2+2 is worth at this point) and we took it.
Home inspection was Friday and he only found a few minor issues, most of which the seller fixed immediately (no GFCI in the kitchen, slow drain in the tub) and some of which the HOA will be dealing with (water under the patio, replacement of main water shut-off valve) before we move in. In any case, nothing I have to deal with.
Tuesday, Mike and I signed lots of paperwork that said how much money we have and how much we're willing to pay every month. We ended up with a 15-year mortgage that is just under the limit of how much we can pay easily every month, with a much better interest rate than the 30-year we were offered.
Now...we wait. Closing is April 18th, and until then the only thing that can really go wrong is the mortgage not being approved for some reason. In that case, we get back our $6000 deposit on the house and try to fix the issue before we look for another one.
But really, I'm pretty sure--I HAS A HOUSE!
And I will have my own knitting and crafting room. (What? I can't have a post with NO mention of knitting at all...)