The last week has been pretty much house buying and car repair chaos. Mrs. Geek's car went into the shop almost two weeks ago, ostensibly to diagnose the cause of an active "check engine" light and get an oil change. It remained in the shop for five days, to the tune of nearly $1100, to get new front brakes and rotors and to determine the cause of a mysterious electrical problem that prevented the dashboard and tail lights from working.
A wire harness at the front end the car turned out to be the culprit. The front bumper of the car sometimes scrapes on the pavement of the street as Mrs. Geek exits the driveway of our apartment building. That scraping action had slowly at the wire harness, gradually exposing the wire insulation underneath. Eventually, that insulation was scraped away as well, and two exposed wires shorted and welded together.
The practical upshot of all this was a lot of carpooling. With Mrs. Geek getting a few doctor visits out of the way before the school year starts, and with various housing search-related appointments as well, getting both of us to everywhere we needed to be took some effort. It didn't make me horribly productive at work either.
The big news that arrived in the middle of the carpool chaos is that we found a second house (house 26) that Mrs. Geek and I both like. In fact, we like it even more than house 24, to the point that we're actually going to make an offer to buy it. Houses 26 and 24 are the same size and the same general floor plan, but house 24 is a recent rehab that lacks amenities like shades/blinds on the windows, screens on the windows, and much in the way of landscaping. House 26 is currently occupied by a family with two small children. They re-did the kitchen about two years ago, and did a great job with the back yard. Someone also built some loft storage into the rafters over the garage that should come in very handy.
So, now begins the scary part. I've calculated that we should probably be able to make the mortgage payments, cloth ourselves, and still be able to eat... though that's about it. I'm the kind of person who likes to save some money for a rainy day, and we won't be able to do much of that for a couple years. We got a good rate on a 30 year fixed non-conforming (jumbo) mortgage from a banker recommended by our realtor, and got pre-approved for the amount needed to make an offer earlier today. I'm heading out to have a little dinner and work on a contract agreement after I finish writing this.
Everyone keep those fingers crossed. We could have a house soon!
said drgeek
on 2007-08-13 at 2:44 p.m.
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The Wayback Machine - To Infinity And Beyond
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