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So the boy and I went out to see the house again today, and then we.. put in an offer. To buy. The house. This house, to be exact:
Image yoinked from real estate website. I guess I could also write a little bit about the house since whether or not we end up owning it, it's still the first house we've put in a bid for and so it's not just rambling about a house we could theoretically want to purchase but never pursue, as it has felt with other houses. It's three bedroom, two bath, 2,000 square foot plus garage and basement. (I don't know, is it tacky to talk about square footage? I don't think it would be and that's always what I want to know because I like to try to envision the size but I'm not up on the house-buying discussion etiquette.) There's a bit of a sunroom-ish room off the kitchen in the back, and a laundry room (!!!) which is a bit of a big issue with me. The bathroom could use a bit of work but mainly because it's ugly, not because it's not functional, so that's okay. It's across the street (and it's kind of.. well, not "in the country" but it has more of a country road feel to it.. not a subdivision) from a cute white church, and is actually owned by the church. They've been using it for Sunday school so there are ten bean bags in the living room, which I think is funny. (We tried to make them part of our offer, that they stay, but then decided that the contract for buying your first home should not contain humorous bits.) Hardwood floors in the bedrooms, carpet through the hallway and living room. Broadband access available, and yes, we specifically checked about this before we put in the offer. We're nerds, so what?
I am surprisingly calm, although I was displaying signs of initial terror when we first began the offer discussions. I have written before about my worrying tendencies, and how I am trying to overcome it. M has helped so much in a hundred ways but one of them is how he has kind of helped me see the Worst Case Scenario. I started thinking that.. really, what I am worrying about is not making my house payment. It is the whole thing about my job--which I really do like very much--being the only thing tying us to Frankfort, when M is commuting forty minutes each way to work. But when I think of the most likely reasons for me not to work at my job anymore (winning the lottery, M getting a great job somewhere else, eventually having kids and somehow finding it financially feasible to stay home with them, getting serious about writing again and selling a few books so I can work from home, etc) it occurs to me that none of them are necessarily that likely to occur in the next, say, year. (We don't play the lottery, M isn't looking for jobs outside of the drivable radius, I'm not pregnant and couldn't pop out a baby in much less than the year time frame if I was, making a living from selling romance novels is a few years out of range even if I DID have someone agreeing to publish them.) Now, they always say that you should stay in a house a few years so that you can make money on it when you resell, and it's harder to do that the first few years. Now, for my anti-worrying routine.. I started thinking about how if we stayed in this house for one year, the shortest probability, and then decided to sell it, we could either make money, not make money, or lose money. The first two options would be excellent or just fine, so it's just the losing money thing that I have to worry about. Soo.. I started thinking about a round number (X) which popped into my head and is a bit larger than the deposit that we're planning to make. It's a sizable sum that we happen to have on hand right now anyway because.. well, the whole deposit thing and how we've been saving money for a house. And that's when it occurs to me.. I honestly can't imagine anything that would get past the house inspection that would decrease the value of the house that would mean we would get X amount less when we sold it than when we bought it. (If you can think of something, kindly keep your thoughts to yourself because I really don't need to get agitated again!) And if we DID happen, worst case scenario, to lose this X amount in the selling of our house, we would totally bitch, whine and complain, and then we would carry on with our life because.. what can you do? So the worst thing that can happen is that we will lose money we've already promised to the mortgage company. Does that make sense? I don't know if I explained it well but it really, really, really helped me calm my poor nerves when I thought of it that way, and M got it (and was very pleased with my rationale since it sounds like something he would come up with). What's the worst that can happen? Really? And besides, you people say house-buying is fun and I always need to listen to my friends inside the computer.
We should find out by 4:30 tomorrow if they accept the offer. Supposedly there was another offer being written tonight, though, so it's entirely likely that we won't get the house. And.. we'll be okay with that.. disappointed but okay. We'll find something else. If they do accept our offer.. then our closing date is no later than February 17. (So for once we might actually buy ourselves something for Valentine's Day...)
Image yoinked from real estate website. I guess I could also write a little bit about the house since whether or not we end up owning it, it's still the first house we've put in a bid for and so it's not just rambling about a house we could theoretically want to purchase but never pursue, as it has felt with other houses. It's three bedroom, two bath, 2,000 square foot plus garage and basement. (I don't know, is it tacky to talk about square footage? I don't think it would be and that's always what I want to know because I like to try to envision the size but I'm not up on the house-buying discussion etiquette.) There's a bit of a sunroom-ish room off the kitchen in the back, and a laundry room (!!!) which is a bit of a big issue with me. The bathroom could use a bit of work but mainly because it's ugly, not because it's not functional, so that's okay. It's across the street (and it's kind of.. well, not "in the country" but it has more of a country road feel to it.. not a subdivision) from a cute white church, and is actually owned by the church. They've been using it for Sunday school so there are ten bean bags in the living room, which I think is funny. (We tried to make them part of our offer, that they stay, but then decided that the contract for buying your first home should not contain humorous bits.) Hardwood floors in the bedrooms, carpet through the hallway and living room. Broadband access available, and yes, we specifically checked about this before we put in the offer. We're nerds, so what?
I am surprisingly calm, although I was displaying signs of initial terror when we first began the offer discussions. I have written before about my worrying tendencies, and how I am trying to overcome it. M has helped so much in a hundred ways but one of them is how he has kind of helped me see the Worst Case Scenario. I started thinking that.. really, what I am worrying about is not making my house payment. It is the whole thing about my job--which I really do like very much--being the only thing tying us to Frankfort, when M is commuting forty minutes each way to work. But when I think of the most likely reasons for me not to work at my job anymore (winning the lottery, M getting a great job somewhere else, eventually having kids and somehow finding it financially feasible to stay home with them, getting serious about writing again and selling a few books so I can work from home, etc) it occurs to me that none of them are necessarily that likely to occur in the next, say, year. (We don't play the lottery, M isn't looking for jobs outside of the drivable radius, I'm not pregnant and couldn't pop out a baby in much less than the year time frame if I was, making a living from selling romance novels is a few years out of range even if I DID have someone agreeing to publish them.) Now, they always say that you should stay in a house a few years so that you can make money on it when you resell, and it's harder to do that the first few years. Now, for my anti-worrying routine.. I started thinking about how if we stayed in this house for one year, the shortest probability, and then decided to sell it, we could either make money, not make money, or lose money. The first two options would be excellent or just fine, so it's just the losing money thing that I have to worry about. Soo.. I started thinking about a round number (X) which popped into my head and is a bit larger than the deposit that we're planning to make. It's a sizable sum that we happen to have on hand right now anyway because.. well, the whole deposit thing and how we've been saving money for a house. And that's when it occurs to me.. I honestly can't imagine anything that would get past the house inspection that would decrease the value of the house that would mean we would get X amount less when we sold it than when we bought it. (If you can think of something, kindly keep your thoughts to yourself because I really don't need to get agitated again!) And if we DID happen, worst case scenario, to lose this X amount in the selling of our house, we would totally bitch, whine and complain, and then we would carry on with our life because.. what can you do? So the worst thing that can happen is that we will lose money we've already promised to the mortgage company. Does that make sense? I don't know if I explained it well but it really, really, really helped me calm my poor nerves when I thought of it that way, and M got it (and was very pleased with my rationale since it sounds like something he would come up with). What's the worst that can happen? Really? And besides, you people say house-buying is fun and I always need to listen to my friends inside the computer.
We should find out by 4:30 tomorrow if they accept the offer. Supposedly there was another offer being written tonight, though, so it's entirely likely that we won't get the house. And.. we'll be okay with that.. disappointed but okay. We'll find something else. If they do accept our offer.. then our closing date is no later than February 17. (So for once we might actually buy ourselves something for Valentine's Day...)
