Buying A House Sure Is Fun!

Actually, not at all. Unless you love mounds paperwork that make you feel like you're signing away your soul to Freddie Mac (ie. the devil). And unattainable deadlines that you have no control over and may actually void your contract. When I found that out, my head almost exploded for 3 days straight.

On the bright side, assuming all goes well, I will actually get to live in my new (to me) townhouse by the end of the summer. And we got a deal on the place... it was owned by an old lady who either passed away or moved to another place (I assume to receive better care), so despite being old with minimal upgrades the house is in great shape. I honestly can't even believe it. It's moments like these where I pause, and think, "How the hell did I get HERE?" I mean, I'm 25 years old. Neither of my parents own a house... my husband's parents have a beautiful house, but they can't afford it... so how on earth did we decide at 25 and 26 respectively to make such a purchase?

Well, first of all, we need to get out of our apartment. Actually, we needed to move out last June, but couldn't because the timing and moving expenses conflicted with our wedding. So, over the last year, our apartment has exuded wear and tear. It doesn't matter how much we clean it... the spots refuse to come out of the carpet, there's a lingering odd smell that we can't locate, and we live in perpetual fear that either the ceiling above or floor below is going to collapse. And, now there are bugs. Centipedes and ants and (hopefully) a lone black jumping spider. I'm also afraid I saw a cockroach scurrying about the other night. ICK!!!! I hate bugs more than anything. They make me want to simultaneously throw up, scream, and blindly run away. Our complex has always had issues with insects, but previously they had not gotten to us because they're pretty good about exterminating when needed. Apparently they got the memo that we're moving out, so they're throwing us a big farewell insect bash instead.

Also, did I mention the yellow (peeling) wallpaper? That's right... like in the famous story. I can speak from experience - it does indeed drive you mad.

In February we began looking for a new apartment and found out that we would be paying just as much for something to rent than we would to own, which tipped the scale to buying. Then gloriously Congress passed ARRA... granting us $8,000 just for purchasing a house. I think this is incredibly asinine, but if the Government insists on making such decisions at least I'll get back some of my taxes to pay off our car debt and own a house where we can write off the interest payments and acquire equity to use in the future since we don't plan on living in this house for more than 5 years.

We also ironed out some miscommunication and issues with our contractor... so all appears to be well there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all does indeed go well. Granted, it would pretty much take a meteor striking the new house for me to actually be surprised about a potential roadblock, so lets hope any other problems will be less than that.

In the meantime, I have to pick out cabinets, granite colors, and hardwood stain colors. Who ever thought that would be the intimidating part about buying a house? I regularly panic over choosing the wrong shade of stain that will cause our entire house to either look like a cave or a giant sunshine capture that blinds us upon entry. Or worse, God forbid, my kitchen table clashes with the floor or cabinets. This would be a catastrophe I'm not sure I could handle. Wish me luck, I meet with the cabinet designer this afternoon!