House Hunters

Wife and I made a long weekend trip up to Minnesota to look for homes this weekend. In general it was a good weekend. However, if you want to feel like 1) you are poor, 2) you are irresponsible with your money, and 3) questioning every purchase you've ever made, then I suggest you go talk to a mortgage officer. Wife and I are in pretty good financial shape... we've paid off our sizable credit card debt from our wedding related expenses¹, honeymoon, my car, and other expenses related to figuring out how to live with two people on one income in Chicago, and we've managed to start saving a sizable chunk of my salary every month to go towards a down payment... or at least I thought we were in good financial shape. It turns out we haven't really saved enough money, and although our credit ratings are both very high, they just aren't quite high enough to get the really good interest rates. Thankfully my parents have been nice enough to co-sign on the mortgage and to give us some help with the down payment and the closing costs.

We picked a real estate agent and looked at some town homes as well... that was the fun part. It's nice being able to look at a house and see yourself living there. We should be finishing up our search in the next week or so, and then we will be making an offer. Scary, but exciting.

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¹Not the wedding itself... In-laws paid for most of that.