Oh, oh. Spring fever struck hard. We started going to open houses, and cruising the real estate pages. We looked at our combined salary and started to calculate the cost of mortgages...
You guessed it. We've been caught by the buying bug!
And wouldn't you know it -- there are a ton of great properties on the market in our area! We're fighting the tendency for our town's prices to be somewhat inflated by folks fleeing the nearby urban and commuter communities for a nicer "small town" feel, but still -- there are deals! And we've seen some great ones...
Now, do we go for the big house in town, or the house with the couple acres and a bit of a drive to the train? Decisions, decisions. (I'm voting for the country property myself.) Fixed rate mortgage or ARM? Long term or short? (I'm voting for any mortgage which gives us lots of open payment options, and no penalties on paying off early.) Should the house be big or not? (As long as we have lots of storage so that we can satisfy my wife's neatness fetish, I'm okay. However, a workshop would be a bonus.)
Using online tools, we discovered that most lenders would approve us for about 3x my wife's (predictable and regular) salary. If we add my writing revenues, we should qualify for a big enough mortgage to buy the home of our dreams and be officially "house poor".
Stay tuned.
Michael
