House Hunting

yes, my friends. you read that correctly. i typed house hunting. chad and i are buying a house. *squeal* i'm so excited. the lease on our apartment is up july 31, and then our rent is going up $50 a month (if we renew our lease, which we aren't). so we decided to buy a house. it was sort of a spur of the moment decision, but i have found my dream house. it's beautiful, and it's in one of the best neighborhoods in mobile county (near the airport, not close to the ghetto, outside the city limits, and in the best school district in the county). it's bigger than we really need, but i love it. and i haven't even seen the inside yet. it just went on the market today, and they aren't supposed to start showing it until saturday. but chad and i have an appointment to see it tomorrow afternoon at 4. i'd say we picked a good real estate agent. here's the picture from the listing our realtor sent us.

















the lot is a full acre, it has a wood burning fireplace, and the back yard is fenced in (convenient for chad and the bull mastiff he wants to get). it's three bedrooms, which is more than we need (one will become an office/library), but i'm ok with that. it also has two bathrooms. and it's in our price range. how nice for us. the bad thing is that eight other people are interested in it, so there are no guarantees (but we will have a kick ass resale value when we move in a few years). if one of them offers more than the asking price, we're screwed. as long as the inside looks nice, we plan to offer the seller what they're asking for it. then we'll have it inspected and all that stuff... if no one else snags it before we have a chance.

i looked at a few other houses with the realtor today, too. one of them i liked. it's just off of university blvd, pretty close to where we live now (and damn close to the wal-mart neighborhood market). that house was $15,000 less than the house i really want. it's also in a good neighborhood, and it also has three bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths (full bathroom in the hall, half bath in the master bedroom). it's smaller than the other house, but it also has a fenced back yard and all that jazz. it's freshly painted inside and out (well, the trim is 'cause the outside is brick), and the roof looks good. so that's our back-up house. it would cost us a lot less money than the other one, and if we can't get the other one, i'd be happy with it.

we've also looked into having a house built. the only problem with that is that we would have to pay the $610 month to month rent for our apartment until at least november (maybe longer) instead of our renewal rate of $485. that would suck. we found one listing for a house under construction in a neighborhood off bellingrath road (also outside the city limits) for the same price as the house i really want. the realtor is supposed to find out when that one will be finished for me. that's our third house option.

i talked to the mortgage company chick a few minutes ago, and we've officially been approved for $115,000. the house i want is almost $20,000 less than that, but they're willing to add closing costs, insurance, taxes, and everything in. we might not do all that, but it's nice to know we could. the loan officer actually said we could have gotten a bigger loan (maybe even $150,000), but i don't feel comfortable spending that much. if we were going to do that, there's a house in west mobile that was $ 127,000 that was only a year old that we'd buy. we don't think we could afford those payments, though, so we'll stick with around $100,000.

you can be sure that i'll keep everyone posted on the house situation.

in other news, my latest trip to port st. joe went as smoothly as can be expected. all of my cages were present and accounted for, and they all had the right number of urchins in them. hooray for true controls! and i even got home while it was still daylight (around 8 pm). the people at one of the parks were bitchy, but eventually i got things straightened out. from now on when i deal with those people, i am going to ask to talk to someone of the male persuasion. all the chicks i've dealt with there have been bee-otches. but both guys i've dealt with have been super nice. it must be my girlish charms. so from now on, i only deal with men from the dep.

so, that's all for now folks. wish me luck with this whole house thing. let's hope i get the one i want.