Friday, September 08, 2006

I like pleasure spiked with pain, and music is my aeroplane


Back in April, MB and I thought we were ready to start looking for a house. We made an appointment with the bank to get pre-approved for a mortgage. I began searching for houses online with the fervor born of an internet addiction and an obsessive need to plan. I found a lot of so-so options and a few really nice-looking options. I found two places I liked so much that I daydreamed about how we could fix them up and redecorate. Then I found a home that I loved so much that I actually allowed myself to imagine MB and I living there. I had a mental picture of watching our future (hypothetical) daughter walking down the front stairs.

I tried not to think too much about it. We went to the bank, and were told that we could probably afford more than we'd thought. Then we found out that we'll make $2000 too much this year to qualify for 100% financing. And that due to a screw-up with the way Sallie Mae was reporting my tiny student loan, my credit score was too low for us to qualify for a decent set of rates on an 80/20 loan. A few weeks later, there was some weirdness with MB's work schedule. My job is still officially classified as a one-year contract.

About the time that we decided to sign another lease at our apartment and wait another year, the dream house disappeared from the realty site. Even though it had already been made clear that we weren't going to be able to buy it, I was really bummed. I put away all the house listings I'd printed and stopped surfing the house sites. Since the car debacle, we've wavered back and forth between hoping for a house in 2007 and figuring we'll be lucky to make 2008.

As of now, the plan is to save like crazy and see if we can scrape together a 5% down payment by the time our lease runs out in mid-2007. On a whim, I grabbed a booklet of homes for sale from the grocery store tonight. The daydreaming-about-kids-house is back on the market (or maybe it was never off the market, just the website). I covet its 9-foot ceilings and front & rear staircases and butler's pantry and three bedrooms and office upstairs with a little balcony and wood floors.





I keep telling myself that we'll find the house we're meant to find, when the time is right. It's sometimes hard to be mature and sensible, though.




Reading: Book 6 of the Mediator series

Playing: Knuckle Down by Ani DiFranco

4 comments:

  1. that house sold in april but it fell through. from the amount of time it was off the market the problem was most likely with the buyers loan, as opposed to an issue with inspections.

    by the by, my mom showed that house the last time it was for sale (in 2003).

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  2. So is it as pretty and awesome as it looks?

    How big is the yard?

    (See, I like torture.)

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  3. Oh hell. that house is LOVELY. I won't go into how incredibly lovely.

    You'll get a dream house. I promise promise. I hate the ups and downs for you! :-(

    And one year contract my booty. Your workplace would be insane to leave it at a one year contract!

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  4. she said the house was really nice, but she doesn't remember the yard. she's shown a lot of houses in the last 3 years. she mostly remembers that one because it was so nice and she loves older houses like that. since it didn't make an impression i imagine the yard was neither super huge or massively tiny.

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