I hit $40,000 in savings today!! I made my goal!! Only took me 3 years! I never set a time limit on hitting the goal (because I never thought I would get there), but 13k a year is good in my book.

And honestly I cannot act like I did it all on my own. I did start out with a bounty of items that I inherited that needed to be sold on eBay.

The money ALL came from eBay...but it was blogging, other sources of income and discipline that kept me from raiding the eBay account time after time.

Anyways, I'm thrilled with hitting the goal, it's a bright spot in this housing thing.

Mortgages are complicated right now...we are primarily working with Bank #2 and we have a preapproval letter. We worked it down to a 5.5% interest rate, so yea that! The funny thing is, Bank #2 told us that if I moved to the city and got a job making $20,000 I just need to show them 2 paystubs and the preapproval would have been sooo much easier to get. Seems like kind of flimsy way of evaluating ability to make future payments...but once I knew how their game worked, I was able to fit my numbers into their formula and make it work. So we did work it all out without me having to move out of state, get a quick job and pay rent on an apartment just to get qualified.

So tomorrow we are driving up to GA to see if there is anything worth spending our 40k on.

We'll see. 3 duplexes went on the market yesterday for 30k less than the one we are hoping to buy...but they are not as nice either, but they are all in about the same location. So the housing market is still in a slight decline, good for us. It encourages me to be patient and wait for the place we want for the price we can afford.

That's it for today. I'm tired. Honestly, all this mortgage stuff has just worn me out.

Well, all is not well in the lending industry. But we all knew that. I just thought I was immune to the banking problems. hahaha...guess not. Heres an inside look at what I learned today-

Bank #1 called me back wanting to know why I was bothering them when I clearly don't qualify for a mortgage.

Empowered by yesterdays lending tree approval, I stated my case. Banker at bank #1 hands me off to her boss.

Boss says I cannot even touch a "normal" mortgage based on our measly income...but let her see what she could do.

Calls me back with these lending parameters:
If I put 25% down (50k)...they will loan me 150k. Interest rate is 7% for 5 years- after that it balloons to whatever the current mortgage rates are...and it must be a 15 yr mortgage...and I must liquify at least $80,000 and transfer it into their bank into CD's or something so that- they get the business? or they can seize it if I don't pay?...they kind of lost me there because I had loud ringing bells going off in my head and a smart librarian girl was screaming "DONT DO IT!!"- they kept stressing this was an in house loan and they were trying to work with me and around my situation. When asking why I cant get a 30 yr fixed- they said they NO LONGER OFFER THEM??? I don't know. Whatever. It's not going to work so I just said that I would think about it. I think they were qualifying me for a commercial loan because they were actually counting the duplex rental income on this loan...

Bank #2 (Broker guy from lending tree)...all is not well there either. I thought yesterdays 16 pg document was an approval, but he called me back today saying he was meeting with his boss to discuss my case. I guess he compiled all my info into a mortgage and sent it to me to verify that the info was correct- and perhaps added in the 6.653% interest rate to scare me away. It didn't work and so now he's stuck in a meeting to "discuss my case" with his boss.

Bank #3 is "still in underwriting" (where it has been for well over 2 weeks). No decision there.

BB is telling me he does not want to lose the house because of 1/2% interest point. I have my pride. I refuse to pay as if I have a bankruptcy or foreclosure in my background. I'm not going to agree to over pay for something everyone else is getting cheaper. I'll wait if I have too.

BB says we can always refinance later. That's what all the people now losing their homes thought too.

So we have compromised. I want an $850 a month mortgage. If we must go with a 6.5% interest rate (or higher) then we will have to negotiate harder and knock ANOTHER $20,000 off the cost of the house. Then my payment is at $850 plus all the other crap like I was planning all along when I assumed I would be able to lock in a decent interest rate.

BB accepts this plan. Poor BB. There's no way the seller will go that low on the house. But I will let him try...

PS. Congrats Monkey Mama on your awesome refi today!! Instead of discouraging me- your post made me dig in my heels and stick to my pride harder.

After my day long rant about getting rejected for a mortgage...bank #2 just sent me a commitment letter for $140,000 @ 6.5 interest rate!! It came out of the blue, suddenly I have an email in all kinds of legal-ese with 16 (16!!) attached documents for me to sign!

Seems my own argument against their first rejection was well stated. I triumphed!!

Now I gotta work on this 6.5% interest rate. That sucks. They think I cant afford the payments so they tack on a higher rate to make it more unaffordable!

Anyways, my head is spinning. BB is at work and doesnt know any of this yet. I had already divorced myself from the idea of home ownership so suddenly seeing seeing 16 documents to sift through is overwhelming.

I need to take a day to decompress.

Thanks for all your support though...it helped me feel better about the rejections...
....but being accepted FEELS SO MUCH BETTER!!

Just got rejected by bank #2 about applying for a mortgage. Bank #3 application is still in "underwriting" where it has been for several weeks. So that option is not dead yet but may need some resuscitation.

After telling BB about bank #2 rejection- we tried to figure out what areas we needed to improve to get an approval. Bank #1 said that our mortgage payment would be 80% of our monthly income and they would only approve 45% of a monthly income. So we would need to put down $130,000 for a $200,000 house. The woman from bank #1 called me with the rejection info while I was in an airport and didn't have much ability to absorb her numbers. I knew they were crazy off...but we already had bank #2&3 working on our applications so I just let it go.

Bank #2 gave us no formula to work with. I just got an email stating, "After further review of your documents, the debt ratio is still too high and we are unable to approve you at this time."

So BB and I tried to find our weak links. We have gotten conflicting information about my rental income counting as income. I have heard the full amount applies towards my income, 70% applies as my income, or the full amount minus HOA fees counts as income. I have heard that BB's lesson income will or will not count because he is working in a state other than he will live.

But no matter how we tally up the numbers, if we put 30% down, our mortgage payment will be 20-30% of our monthly income at the current 5.5% interest rate without accounting for the additional rental income from the duplex we want to buy.

So I wrote bank #2 with my calculations. I asked where we needed to strengthen our numbers because right now we are offering:
credit in the 800's
$0 debt
30% down
assets that could be liquidated to pay for the house in full
mortgage payment will be less than 30% of our income.

Bank #2 wrote back that he will re-review our paperwork with his manager.

Inspired- I called bank #1 to argue our case. Have not gotten a call back yet.

And bank #3 is not dead yet either.

BB and I have hotel rooms booked to take BB's father to look at the duplex we want to buy this weekend. We thought we might make an offer this weekend. Now everything is on hold until we get a positive confirmation from a bank.

I just feel like a loser. I feel like no one wants to 'work' for us- they want to wait for the easy applications to come in rather than get their hands dirty with us. And I feel like all this being responsible with credit scores, no debt, no student loans, no car loan, full down payment is MEANINGLESS. I am frustrated looking at the homeowners from "easy application days" where anyone was approved. And everyone did get approved! And now we cant with all we are offering? Why are we being punished for other peoples irresponsibility?

And you know what annoys me? Once we buy this rental duplex...we will have 5 sources of income. 5! Now if Joe Schmoe gets a mortgage because he makes $80,000 a year and then loses his job 2 months after moving into his house- he's screwed. His income went down to whatever severance his job provides. But if we have 1 renter who loses their job and cant pay...we still have 4 other sources of income to cover that loss.

And my renter who has paid on time for the last 6 yrs is more reliable than some job obtained a year or two ago. And even if she was a new unreliable renter, If she loses her job, In this economy, I bet it's easier finding a new renter than a new job.

This duplex we are buying near a college has hundreds of potential renters. This place will always be rent able and has a rental history of 4 years with the same renter. I bet the country is losing jobs faster than schools are losing students.

And anyway, why is depending on a renter for payment considered more of a risky income than being dependent on a company for income when our country is in the middle of massive layoffs?

I still have my own human capital capabilities to seize in the event that my renter runs into problems. With a rental income there are 2 potential bodies able to create an income rather than 1! (does that make sense to you?)

I feel like the banks are telling me that my money is not as good as other peoples money because of where it comes from.

I just argued my own point so well I no longer feel like a loser. I feel like the banks are losers for missing out on my business.

I hate obsessing about my housing situation. I know it either bores you all or I sound wildly optimistic about my economic situation in the face of all this doom and gloom. But bore or aggravate you I am about to do.

It just helps me think and weigh my options...writing in this blog.

So I went away on vacation over Thanksgiving weekend. While in the airport on my way home- one of the lenders I am working with called with bad news. She said based on our income she could not approve us for our desired loan. She said she cannot count the $995 a month rental income from the duplex we want to buy as our income because it will be our primary residence. So...even though we will live in one unit and have renters for another unit...that will not count towards our income. She said she has to keep our mortgage payment at 45% of our income. I guess I can understand that. BB and I have an extra 10k saved on top of the 20% down payment for renovations and such...I guess we could apply that 10k to the down payment as well. So I asked her "how much do we need to put down for this mortgage to be approved for our 200k request?" She runs numbers and says we need to put down $130,000. ??!! I quickly ended the conversation because we don't have 130k. I wish we did because then our mortgage payment would be less than $400 a month! Anyways- on the plane I was trying to figure out where her number came from- but $400 a month is 20% of our current income. Not the 45% she said was our limit. Whatev.

BB and I are not deterred. We refuse to give up easily. I understand that rules are in place, I understand that on paper we look risky, But I also know that whatever bank decides to lend to us is going to get every single payment on time.

This morning I got a hold of a broker through lending tree that has been harassing me wanting my business. He needs all our paperwork and said he thinks we will need to put 30% down and can lend us the rest. So heres hoping.

We had plans to put in an offer in 2 weeks- but the plan is also to have concrete lending in place so everything goes smoothly after negotiations.

Since we will be putting down the money we saved PLUS our renovation money...we are reconsidering maybe offering on the house I have mentioned in previous posts that was BEAUTIFUL in a less than stellar part of town. The place is nearly perfect in my eyes- I could easily live in it and have no complaints. The house we were planning to make an offer in the better neighborhood needs some big work before we even move in.

So...it seems we are reconsidering our thought process now that we will no longer have "fix up" money. But as a plus; our mortgage payment will be smaller! We might be able to stretch the rental income to cover the mortgage AND insurance! Holy cow that would be great!

So that is where we are at. We are not taking the setback as a sign to not go forward- we are ready for this commitment and now we are looking to get creative in the financing department.

And in closing- the news has announced possible plans to DROP new homeowner interest rates down to 4.5% in the next few months. I think I am somehow blessed that it has taken 3 yrs to save up a downpayment...we have had minor stallings in getting a mortgage...because we might get incredibly lucky and buy at a time that the govt is offering a $7500 tax credit AND a super low interest rate for new homeowners!

I know it will all work out fore me. I'm just impatient!!

I paid off the computer on the 0% Bestbuy card. I have 10 more months of 0% interest, but I have the money now and don't want it on the credit report. So that's done.

Working on bank pre-approval for a mortgage. I initially went on lendingtree a few months ago and was pre-approved within a few hours...but it didn't feel legitimate. We are somewhat risky on paper and they just didn't ask enough questions... I don't want to start a house buying process to have the financing fall through.

So we went to WAMU and have the opposite problem. They are very non-personal and are only looking at a certain set of numbers and not listening to the explanations we provide around the numbers. After waiting almost 2 weeks I get an email asking me to provide an explanation for purchasing a primary residence in GA when BB is contracted to work in TX.They also asked why BB worked for 4 different companies in a span of 6 months...("its not companies! It's teams!") they are not really taking our situation into account. They keep saying BB was "fired" when he was traded...Thats a blow to the self esteem to hear (trading is good! Firing is bad! Dont label me fired!)...Then they also want an explanation for buying a duplex rather than a SFH. BB just got fired up at their emails and then no response attitude.

So we are now working with a woman in GA who so far is friendly, listens and works hard. We just priority mailed off our paperwork to her so hopefully we will have a pre-approval that I feel comfortable with in a week or two.

So that is 3 agencies who have checked our credit in the last 3 weeks...our excellent credit is our most valuable asset at this point and I do get nervous allowing all these people to check the credit but it is what it is.

The woman in GA of course asked all our income and sadly I couldn't talk about ebay without IRS problems-which is too bad because I have been earning a normal middle class salary off of ebay. oh well- I will keep earning and the lender will keep asking where all this money keeps coming from and I will just keep saying I am downsizing to move to the smaller space. Which is true. I'm just downsizing pretty hardcore.

Well, I just added a couple thousand to my house savings fund...and the house we want just lowered their price AGAIN! by $13,000.

Seller is suddenly motivated. $26,000 price drop in 2 months.

Our duplex is now at a very reasonable price and I am panicked someone will snatch it up. I was counting on that "just a tad unreasonable" price to scare away buyers.

We are still going through the pre approval process so we are not in a position to put in an offer yet.

Hopefully the stars will align soon.

Possibly ignorant question...but people always make remarks such as "oh you are only making interest payments at this point" when you say that you made a payment on your mortgage if you are a new homeowner.

Mortgages- why is it that you are paying primarily interest in the beginning of your loan, and more principal as you pay the loan down?

I would think that if you get a mortgage for $100,000 @ 6% for 30yrs...I would think the bank divided $100,000 by 360 months (length of loan) =$277 and then charged 6.0% interest on the $277.00....but the mortgage calculator says the monthly payment is $600.00...why??

Well, I got houses on the brain. Yesterday the house we are interested in buying dropped another 10k in price. The owner has dropped the price $24,000 since it went on the market over 6 months ago. Good news- but I think there is still room to negotiate.

I'm sure nobody cares to hear me going on about this house...but here I go anyways. Writing out my thoughts helps me organize my thoughts.

The house is actually a duplex. Baseball boy and I have been looking at duplexes since we discovered that actively rented duplexes are counted as your income when applying for a mortgage. We have always 'talked' of owning real estate and making our income that way...but we always talked of buying a house and renting it out later when we upgraded. Now we have our sights set on first a duplex-later a single family home.

For us it seems to make sense:
The 2nd unit will pay a majority of the mortgage (helpful when I am unemployed, BB is underemployed).

Both units can be easily rented out if we decide to travel, move, whatever.

Repairs, taxes and improvements made to the rental unit is tax deductible!

The income allows us to have an income..but not have to work 9-5 everyday so BB can continue to play ball.

If we mess up the fixing-upping of one unit we can rent it out and move into the other unit and try decorating again!(mess up- as in: choose bad paint colors or ugly tiles).

Duplexes tend to cost just 50% over the cost of a SFH...so you get 2 units for 1.5x the price.

This duplex currently has the bottom floor unit rented for the next 8 months for $995 a month. We are HOPING to get the house for about $210k...leaving us to just cover the remaining taxes, insurance ect by a couple hundred dollars.

This house is one of the uglier houses on the block. There are some uglier ones...but this house is by no means the biggest or most impressive. BB is talking a lot about changing the trim paint colors from brown to white...and claims that will really help the curb appeal. I think maybe some sod will help the curb appeal. Actually, I think re-boxing in the front doors will really help the curb appeal.

The house is in a very desirable area. I'm surprised we can afford this location. It's 5 blocks from the big central park in the city, 2 blocks from a grocery store and 2 blocks to a cute shopping area, and a few blocks from the local big college.

A bit about the house:
The house has an UGLY outdated kitchen and bathroom. This way there will be no guilt from ripping out cabinets just to put in cabinets to fit my taste. And the backyard is way overgrown with weeds and junk. There is a metal garage in the backyard that basically looks like it MIGHT fall down soon. BB wants to immediately redo our kitchen and bath...but I actually explained that if we buy this place then my first priority is landscaping the backyard and securing/fixing the garage up. I want to do these things FIRST because if you dont do them when you first move in...you just never end up doing it. Until it's time to sell and you realize "Gee! That garage out back would be a real selling feature for the house if only it was not overgrown with weeds!" But I figure the kitchen and bath will eventually get redone because every time we walk into the room we will have a replaying fantasy about hardwood floors and updated fixtures. BB actually understands my thinking and agrees with me.

BB gave me hope for buying the fixer upper yesterday. I have mentioned in my blogs that though he SAYS he can sheet rock, electric, lay tile and grout...I have never actually seen him DO anything handy. Well yesterday- we went to Home Depot, rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned our rented house carpets ourselves. Maybe that's no big deal for you experienced homeowners...but for the past 3 yrs that I have lived here, I have paid a company to come in once a year and clean our carpets. This year- we are saving for a house. We don't have $120 to pay for carpet cleaning. So we decided to do it ourselves. And we did it! It was only $40 and took 2 hours! I'm so impressed with us. Yesterday gave me hope that we CAN do household handy stuff!

And now when we move out of this house...hopefully we will be leaving it in the same condition we moved into it. And I can feel good about being a good renter. Since I will maybe soon have renters myself...I am improving my renter karma this way.

In other news-the other duplex we looked at that I LOVE!! dropped $7,000 off its list price yesterday as well. This house is larger, all upgraded, has STAINED GLASS WINDOWS, and WOODEN BEAMS in the ceiling..and a RENOVATED attic featuring a half bath!! All for 10k LESS than the other duplex...but its not in a good area. The surrounding streets are crime filled and the city projects are only a few blocks away...so sadly this house is not an option for us. I am so sad about that house. The block is lovely- all updated and big houses...but it's just 2 blocks of a GREAT neighborhood surrounded by crime...so we figured that for appreciation values- it would not be a good investment. I'm still sad about that house though.

You can see which house I like huh? Crime area house- I LOVE. This nice area house- eh. I like the area. And I like the unfinished attic potential (though a finished attic would be nicer)...and I like the potential for the backyard, the garage, the kitchen, bathroom...but that's a lot of work. And $$.

But I think this puts me in a better position for the negotiating..because I don't love the property. If I was negotiating for the crime area house- I would get really emotional about it. This place- I am more objective and it keeps me a little smarter. I hope.

And I have to keep telling myself that we are NOT BUYING A HOUSE right now!! I keep thinking about it and planning for it. But I need my patience right now. I want to see if this government first time home buyer package changes before we start making offers.

Ok, we worked out the housing issue...for now. Baseball guy (man? boy?) apologized last night for pressuring me to buy a house and he was proud that we "made our first decision together as a married couple." hmmph. I'm not to proud of how it was handled but I will let it slide.

Regarding the house, we decided we are going to wait a bit. President Bush has been talking about increasing the first time home buyers tax credit from $7500 to $20,000- and I guess he said he will discuss the bill on Monday. So hubby is content to wait for that news, and I have some time to relax and recover from the wedding.

I did email my Realtor asking if our opening offer of 30% below asking price is an ok place to start the negotiations with the hope of getting the place 20% below asking price.

My realtor said he does not think we will get 20% below asking price but it's a good place to start. I'm thinking that the place has been on the market well over 6 months and they only dropped the price 5% two months ago. In the last few months the prices have been dropping faster and faster...so if the seller does not want to consider our offer then we have no problem waiting a few more months and trying again.

I think we are in a good position because this place is not our dream place. Not even close...but it is the best place we can afford. The location is very good, and it has an untouched attic that can eventually be made into a master suite...but everything else with the house is PROJECT. My head grows weary when I start thinking of the cost for lumber, and sandpaper, and paint, and weed whacker and power washer...and on the list goes. So neither hubby nor I will cry if we have to walk away.

But I am getting ahead of myself...I did say we were waiting to see about this home buyers stimulus package first-right?.

Ok well- wedding has come and gone and the FINAL NUMBERS are in!!

I am not proud of the final numbers...but I am proud that SOMEHOW we paid for the wedding IN FULL!

Drum roll...final cost of the wedding...$23,630. I have done my part of keeping the economy humming along.

We started off with $8,000 in savings when we started wedding planning over a year and a half ago. Then I paid what I could as we went along. We entered the wedding weekend $11,000 in wedding debt but made back $9,000. After pulling a few thousand from the house down payment fund...WE HAVE NO DEBT!!

It's been over a year that I have been juggling numbers and budgets regarding the wedding...and entering into that type of situation all over again regarding buying a house just exhausts me. I am tired of debt. I am tired of giving people money. I am tired of having money in the bank but it's earmarked for something else.

For a little while...I just want the money sitting in the account to be sitting in the account. I'm tired of running numbers to see how far it will stretch for the next big purchase. I am tired of having faith that the money needed will come from somewhere when we need it.

I truthfully feel a bit pressured by Baseball man to buy a house right now. He comes at me with lots of rational arguments on why we should buy NOW (like this week)..and the only rational thing I can say back at him is that we need to wait and see if house prices come down a bit more. Or that we don't have enough of a cushion after we buy the house for emergencies. Then after he has listed his rational reasons why we should buy now he throws the last years worth of whining I have been doing about wanting a house back in my face. He gives me a guilt trip because I have been whining that I want a house and now he is mentally all ready to buy it and now I am pulling the rug out from under him.

I'm not sure why...but after researching weddings and doing all that work for so long...I'm just tired. I'm just tired of buying things. I'm tired of taking big steps in my life. I'm emotionally exhausted here. And he is raring to go.

And I HATE throwing this in his face...but it's MY MONEY he wants to spend on the house! He's not contributing a DIME! And it's our money now...but when he wants to spend it ALL in one lump sum without doing any research I tend to revert back to the "It's my money" mindset.

I went ahead and wrote an offer for my Realtor today to present to the sellers of the house we like after Baseball man wore me down. We argued and he just kept arguing his point until I had no argument. On PAPER we can afford a house...but I kind of think in my head that we cant. Well- we wont go into foreclosure...but I don't think he realizes how tough it will be. Because on PAPER we can do it (barely). But he's all counting on me getting a job and that extra income will be our cushion. I'm scared to depended on this imaginary income he assumes I will make assuming I can find a job.

Then he's talking about tapping into my IRA if I cant find a job, and I'm worried about counting on that as well because I just lost $25,000 in the IRA in October. 8 more months like that and IT'S GONE. Gone. Gone. Gone. I'm not even going into the guilt I will feel regarding losing all my parents hard earned money.

So that's where we are at. Maybe things will seem brighter tomorrow. We finally have his parents full support on this thing. Now that I got my wish (his parents realize we are capable adults and don't need to be babied) I am OK with sitting tight in this rented house...unfortunately I created a monster with my previous desire to buy a house.

That's my rant.

I know I need to start off my new blog entry discussing the wedding...but new hubby and I went house hunting over the weekend in our beloved city that we want to buy in (not where we live now)...and we found a property we think we will put on offer on!

Baseball Man is all set to go ahead and write in an offer...I am dragging my feet a bit. I know house prices will continue to go down...so we are going to offer 20% less than asking price to try and absorb some of the depreciation. The place has been for sale nearly a year and has only dropped in price 10% 2 months ago. We discussed that if we can get the house 15-20% off then we will always be happy with our price paid for the property no matter the depreciation.

HOWEVER...Have I heard that Obama is thinking of changing first time home buyers rules to allow first time buyers to lock in a 3% interest rate? I heard that there was talk of this. For Baseball man and me...that is nearly a $300 a month difference! ALSO, I heard there was talk of increasing the first time buyer tax credit from $7500 to $20,000. Once again...if that is coming..I want to wait to buy!

New Hubby is telling me those changes might be a year off IF THEY EVER COME...so I'm wondering what the likelihood is that I will be hating myself if we buy a property now.

So BB and I decided to take one baby step closer to home ownership and see if the price range we think we can afford is the price range the lenders think we can afford.

Interesting morning. I started off checking our credit scores (both our scores are in mid-800's good job us). BB and I were VERY surprised to find out BB has a student loan out in his name with a balance due of 11k. (paid up to date) BB's parents had never mentioned a loan out, actually they said they took an equity credit to pay both kids schools outright. BB has not been in college for about 7 yrs...so...hmmmm. At any rate it's a speedbump. The payment due is $130 a month and since BB earns 10k a year I can see this not getting paid off anytime soon and GREATLY hindering the lenders ability to account for BB's salary.

Anyways- that surprise aside- The lenders didn't really know what to do with me. Since we want to buy out of state we are stuck in the "you cant be approved until you have a job and you cant get a job till you live in the state" issue. Rather than renting in future city and getting a job- I was hoping to just get approved based on my meager rental income and my assets. Bless the lenders heart they were struggling to approve me but by the end of the phone conversation even I would be hard pressed to lend to myself.

So I got off the phone with options. I can get a co-signer (NO WAY!), I can move to the state and get a job (possible but not to practical), I can pull out a mortgage or equity loan from my rental property to fund the house (riskier and more expensive than I would like), or we can buy a duplex, and 70% of the rental agreement income will become a part of my income. This is the most likely scenario. We have been talking about duplexes off and on...weighing the pros and cons and leaving it as a possibility. Actually it sounds ideal- I am just concerned because the duplexes we can afford are in shady parts of town. But now with this mortgage issue...looks like that is the way we need to go.

I am just annoyed because I paid cash for my new vehicle last year. I paid cash for my masters degree. I am paying cash for this wedding coming up next month. Does that count?? No! And if I had not been Dave Ramsey responsible I would have 50% of my future house price to pay in cash!

Anyways, after feeling
really poor and unsuccessful in life I check my email and lo and behold- a lender approved me for 250k! What are they thinking?! I cant afford that!

This weekend Baseball boy's father came to visit us for a few days. Psychologically /Emotionally it was a bit topsy-turvy.

BB's dad has always made me defensive when it comes to the home buying thing. In the past he has dismissed our desire to buy a home by saying that owning a home is a huge responsibility. He acts like he views us as kids who cant function without his help. Maybe he doesnt think this- but I am so sensitive to feeling dependent on a person that my radar for picking up comments like that is razor sharp.

If I didn't actually need his help I would never even include him in the purchasing plan. Just to save myself the irritation of being talked to like a child. But he is the only 'adult' I regularly talk to, whose opinion I respect and I know he has useful information stored in his brain that I need.

As soon as the topic of house buying came up he starts off with a laundry list of things we have to do to 'educate' ourselves before starting to look for a house. Which would be fine- if we had not been preparing to buy a house for the past 3 years and the advice he was giving us such as "School systems are important for resale value" was information that can be heard on HGTV everyday. I was irritated to no end. I took it to mean that he believes we just woke up and said "I think I want to buy a house today".

To hurry up this irritating part of the conversation, I was like, "I know-I know all that." So he then starts up with a list of personal roadblocks for us to consider, "well you need a garage, I would be worried about your jeep."- These comments continued to irritate me- does he think I am going to spend over 20k on a brand new vehicle and then just completely forget to accomodate the vehicle when house hunting? My jeep has actually been a focal point in our house search this whole time. But he just starts in assuming we never thought about this stuff.

Then comes the financial roadblock. "you guys cant afford it. Right now with the economy as it is, you need 25% to put down." To which I was able to reply to him we have almost 40k to use as a down payment. That honestly gave him pause. He was silent- trying to find a point to argue. He came up with nothing.

Then suddenly the whole topic changed course. He started asking ME questions about our plan. He started saying optimistic lines like, "now is a good time to buy a house." And from then on the conversation flowed about how to get us into a house.

Then! Later that night I got the information I knew he had and I was patiently waiting for. He found us a way to add $17,000 extra on our down payment!

He assured me the $7500 tax break is applicable to us, and explained to me how I can pull $10,000 out of my IRA TAX FREE for our 1st home purchase.

Then it was all talk of how "now is the best time to buy a place, we will never get a shot at this again with having the power to negotiate and take advantage of interest rates..." So now he is on board with us 100% and even wanted to meet the realtor with us to look at houses together.

The whole tone changed over the weekend. Before he was treating us like we were about to make a huge mistake and we needed him to babysit us just to protect us from our own ignorance, then suddenly he became so excited that he wants to help us!

I find it frustrating that it was the down payment that changed his mind. We have been saving for 3 years. That means he spent the last 3 years thinking we were foolishly wasting money. While we were saving he was judging us for being broke thinking we were just bad with money.

Yeah -BB was guilty of using his dad's CC sometimes- leading Dad to feel he was supporting us and he was keeping us in a lifestyle unaffordable to us- and that has been a battle keeping BB off that card- but did Dad really think BB was charging fuel and groceries because we were spending our income on stupid stuff?

Did Dad really think this whole time that were just saying we wanted to buy a house and not doing anything about accomplishing the goal?

hmmm...

(Up above is a house Baseball boy and I have been admiring online....)

Well...my house down payment is locked up at WAMU/J.P.Morgan. No sweat...not looking for a home...well not looking for a home seriously.

I am wondering about mortgage interest rates though. I wonder if this bailout will mean they raise interest rates because the economy is more stable/ to help the banks a bit more.

I am lucky to have seen this housing crisis from the beginning as an outsider. I learned alot. It confirmed that my initial plan was good to put down 20% despite pressure from peers and advertisements to "jump in now- you are a fool if you miss this opportunity." I decided on the 20% route because that's the way homeowners who still own their home 10,20,40 years later did. It's a proven course to success...all this other stuff was just trendy bling.

But sadly...I think I am a bit spoiled on the mortgage rates. 5% interest sounds good. Quite tasty. Now people are remembering interest rates from the eighties for 10-11%? No way! I'm not paying that! I want to lock in now!

So off to crunch the numbers I went last night. We cant afford it....I am having an opposite problem of most people- I finally have a decent down payment-but don't think we can afford the monthly mortgage.

So now the new goal is to put 30% down. I am kind of sad about it because 30% of $200-250,000 is a long way off...but to sleep at peace Baseball boy and I want to keep the mortgage and all house bills at or under $1600 a month.

So...nothing much to report here. I am financially the same as I was yesterday, just a bit further behind in our life-goals. But we are still going house hunting in November. ~Just to look though!