Welcome to the Neighborhood!

I am finally a homeowner... assuming the funds were paid out of the escrow account to the seller this morning...

You have to love how mortgage lenders mess up your loan amount on the day of closing, don't provide the closing packet to the attorney until 2 hours before closing, and then leave work promptly at 5:30pm so you cannot close in totality until they approve some faxed documents when they decide to look at them in the morning. Especially when you weren't able to start the signing documents until 5:00pm. And then my name was mis-spelled, so we had to reprint about half the documents and sign them again. After reconciling the lender's inaccurate math.

And people wonder why this mortgage/housing crisis occurred.

We did actually get to go into our house last night (which should never have happened being that the seller did not receive his funds.) Reason being, we have a neighbor of epic proportions. I will from this point on call her Maryann. You see, Maryann strongly believes in the neighborhood sharing keys in case of an emergency. Being that it's a townhouse, we share an open space attic with 3 other houses before there is a firewall separating us from the next 4 houses. We also share a wall and apparently 5 years ago there was some kind of pipe burst and the whole place could have flooded had she not had a key to get in and turn it off. Despite the fact that there is a master shutoff valve for the street 2 houses down from us (she showed it to us yesterday... in addition to her alarm code and where her house water turnoff is.) We also were lectured for at least an hour on the benefits of living in the community and taking care of one another. There were almost tears... from her sentimentality and me losing my patience.

I decided the best course of action was to play super sweet young neighbor girl. (It's sickening how much I can turn it on when the need arises. It's a gift, what can I say.) We were also informed we are the first "normal" neighbors she's had in that house - she's lived there since the community was built in 1972. The first lady lived there with her [straight] son, the second lived there with her gay son and his boyfriend, and the last lady was deaf. I didn't quite know how to appropriately respond to her description of the previous neighbors, so I just kind of went "huha, okay?" And tried to move on to another subject as soon as possible to disguise my shock at what was just said to me (and suppress my anger.) We brought up how we are really excited about moving in and look forward to getting a puppy soon. She was like "Oh, please not one that barks all the time!" To which we responded, "Of course not, we don't hate ourselves." She was like "Great, then it can be our dog. I can take care of it while you're gone and let it outside during the day." Because she had tried adopting one, but when it needed to go outside at night during the cold winter she decided it was enough and sent it back... but there are 2 of us (and her!) so we should have no worries about our future dog. As long as it's quiet. And she can care for it during the day while we're at work.

This was during her tour of her house and our street. She reiterated at least 12 times in the last 20 minutes of the tour the need for us to share a key and how she would NEVER go into our house unless it was an emergency. In fact, Maryann asserts, she's been a Realtor for 25 years so going into other people's houses doesn't hold any interest for her. She left for about 20 minutes after which she returned to take the lock box (for realtors showing the house) off the door... and let herself right on in...

I was gone picking up the best pizza in the world while this happened, but my husband and couple of friends were there and witnessed the event. We decided we're probably going to need an extra dead bolt, a chain on the door, and a yappy dog to prevent the imminent intrusions of Maryann.

Our street should have one of those carved wood signs that say: Welcome to the Neighborhood! Surrender Your Privacy at the Door.

Lets just hope I don't have to get creative with ways to take that privacy back.

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!