House Update...

So it looks as though a potential crisis was averted. The sellers had an HVAC person in yesterday morning to clean and inspect the furnace. There were no cracks – it was just condensation/water something or other. So the furnace is fine and we’re good to go. We have an appointment with the mortgage specialist on Tuesday afternoon to finalize the financing. I plan to stop by our apartment building’s management office this afternoon to see if they have a form for the 60 day notice or if I have to free-hand that.

The next big hurdle is all the stuff we need to buy before we move in. Mainly it’s the appliances but there are other things we want to take care of as well (hello pink room!) The bank made it very clear that we can only get the mortgage for the amount of our offer. I figure our other options include a signature loan or some kind of in-store credit line or card. I did some hunting around for rates and terms and right now it looks as though getting a “Project Card” from Lowe’s might be our best bet. Lowe’s will most likely carry everything on our list so we can buy everything from the same place. Their Project card is relatively new and seems to work like a line of credit. You apply for the card and then you can use it for whatever you need at Lowe’s within a 6-month time period. After the six months is up you start paying it back. The interest rate is fixed at (as low as) 7.99% for a period of 4 to 10 years with no prepayment penalties. Seeing as how the lowest personal loan rate I can find is 8.99%, this seems like a good choice. That said, it’s not guaranteed that I’ll get the lowest rate (although I don’t see why not since my credit is excellent) and we wouldn’t know what our repayment term would be until the application was approved. Even so, we plan to stop up at Lowe’s tonight and see if we can talk to someone about it and perhaps submit an application to see what we qualify for.

If anyone has other ideas that I might have forgotten, let me know. I believe in doing research and getting all the facts before making a decision. :)