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December 03, 2006

All about buying a home

Over the past few weeks, Amanda and I have been moving forward on something that we have both wanted for a very very long time: buying a house.

Yup, that's right, the Engelking's are looking to purchase a house of their own. No more apartments. No more giving away money to a company that refuses to come and take a look at a broken garbage disposal. No more noisy neighbors hooping and yelling outside your room early in the morning. No more thumping and bumping of cars at all hours of the night. No more gangs of kids running around giving you weird looks like they're getting ready to do something rotten.

Amanda and I went a few weeks ago to begin the process of getting a mortgage. It's taken a while to get all of the proper paperwork together, but I think that it has been worth it. We're hoping to have word no later than tomorrow evening if everything goes right. We may be able to make an offer within a few days.

I've never thought about it before, but we're doing quite well financially. The loan officer explained that our debt to income ratio is quite low. Most people have something like a 50-50% ratio ... Amanda and I have a 25-75 ratio. Twenty-five percent of our income goes to debt, such as a car payment or credit card. The rest of it is open, and generally goes towards things like utilities, rent and such.

Oh, and we've already found the house that we like. We found a foreclosure that is in a good area of town. The house itself is about 6 years old. There are some minor things that need to be taken care of, but they're all rather small items. A floor needs to be fixed and some siding needs to be put back in place, but things like this can be expected when a house has sit vacant as long this one has.

Keep your fingers crossed for us. This is something that we've really wanted for a long time. With just a little luck and a little time, we may just get it.

~out...

Posted by ed at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)