Mortgage or No Mortgage?

I think we can characterize our time with the mortgage specialist last night as successful. We discussed our options and ultimately we decided to go ahead and see whether I could be pre-approved for the high end of our price range ($150,000) on my own. Thanks to my excellent credit score, I was pre-approved for a loan for more than even the most expensive house on our current list. Even though the interest rate on the kind of mortgage we chose was a little higher than I’d like (6.375%), it’s reasonable considering it requires no down payment and the PMI is relatively low. My estimates (I had put together a pro forma budget to see if we could even afford to be buying a house right now) were pretty close to the actual numbers the bank quoted us so we should be good. Tonight we look at house #1, which is on the high end of our price range ($144,900.) There are a few others from the list the realtor gave us that we’re interested in as well so we’ll see how this process works out. We’re looking at perhaps a May or June closing date. We want to get it done before the wedding, but we also have to give 60 days notice at our apartment. It’s kind of strange, doing this house thing. I think maybe it will be a positive thing to get it done earlier than I’d planned since I was beginning to think my whole “life plan” was spiraling out of control. This might allow it to get back on track.

Last night we also got the chance to finally go out to celebrate Adam’s birthday. Only 10 days late… Sometimes that’s how life works. We went to Tumbleweed. I had never been there before but it was AYCE ribs Wednesday and that was what Adam was craving. I (unsurprisingly) stuck with the tame grilled chicken sandwich and was pleased to find it was not covered with anything spicy. We happened to get there at the tail end of happy hour so the bill didn’t kill me either. After that we went home (in a torrential downpour thunderstorm) and Adam tinkered with his car’s stereo system for a while. He recently installed a new stereo that has XM, AM, FM, and an iPod hookup all in one and he was getting annoyed by the oversensitive new XM radio antenna. When he was done with all that we caught up on our “Apprentice” and “What About Brian” shows before heading to bed. Tonight I had planned to try out a new recipe that Adam flagged in the Rachael Ray book but that will depend on how long the house thing takes tonight since our appointment isn’t until 5:30.