Home Sweet Home

So, Angela and I got the big idea in our heads to buy a house. Sounds like a good idea, right? We have a bit of money stashed away, we could buy a place, get away from having a landlord, even sell the house in a few years and make some money on our investment. Piece of cake.

We have been looking around online for AGES at all the houses available around here. They were mostly 3 bedroom 1.5 bathroom, $400,000 pieces of SHIT. Not encouraging.

Then we found "the one" - a nice little 2 bedroom 1 bathroom cape with a massive finished basement, new kitchen, nice little yard and the potential to easily add 2 more bedrooms and another half bathroom. The place is move-in condition, owned and maintained by an architect. The asking price, a mere $389,000.

A bit much for a 2 bed/1bath house, but still....

We received a call that an offer had been put on the house, and they wanted to know if we were still interested (they would listen to all offers).

So, we put in an offer of $370,000.

Declined. Counter-offer = $385,000.

$385,000?? That insulted me. I promptly cut off negotiations.

Recieved a phone call 3 days later that the initial offer fell through, and that they would accept $375,000. We agreed to those terms.

YAY! Or so we thought...

We then asked a mortgage guy about closing costs. We were told $13,500. WHAT!??!?!

"We can't afford that," we said. "We will have to call the deal off."

I called the real estate guy to tell him so.

Not so fast.

There is a way to work the closing costs into the mortgage, said Mr. Real Estate Man.

So, that brings us to now. All the questions continue to swirl, can we really afford this?? Is this the right time? Should we wait a year til we have some more money under our belts??

I am told that this is a common thing, to question everything about buying a house. There is no "right time." You just gotta take the plunge.

We continue to ponder our financial future in terms of affording this. We have begun a list of positives vs. negatives. Positives : everything other than $$. Negatives : $$$$$$$$$.

I'll keep you posted as to what we decide. In the meantime...any thoughts/advice??

-B