Buy a House

The house closed today, we get the keys later today. What an interesting process. I guess this is just the beginning (of a 30 year fixed, that is :)

The builder agreed to make the small improvements found during inspection. We moved the close date up to the 23rd since things are moving so smoothly and we’d like that extra week to move/clean.

The house (and presumably also the land on which it sits) was just appraised for a bit more than we paid for it. Nice to know that we got a bargain. Guess it’s a sign of the market.

I don’t know much about appraisals. Just enough to know how much I don’t know! I only got a quick summary so I don’t know if this was a “market value” or “investment value” appraisal, for instance…

The inspector only found a few minor issues to bring up with the builder, and he said overall the home was built “good to very-good”. One step closer to closing.

I’d convinced myself that the seller wouldn’t take our low offer, but they did. So now we’re on to the next step, inspection.

Venessa and I just made an offer for this house (there’s no address on the listing but it’s a few blocks west of where we live now).

It was just what we were looking for, small, high-quality kitchen, open layout, bright, room for a garden, but not too much yard to maintain.

Venessa and I are starting to look at houses, and generally get our finances together to be in the house-hunting process. Part of this is figuring out ways to save money.

One day while I was driving through my ‘hood I saw a car with really sweet rims and it got me thinking: if the person driving that car was asked to “tighten the belt” financially speaking, would he think to trade in the $5k rims for a more modest pair? What are the “Sweet Rims” in my life? What are the objects, habits, lifestyles, etc., that I spend an inordinate amount of money on, but aren’t really an integral part of my happy survival?

I’m convinced that almost everyone has Sweet Rims somewhere in their life. Some are easy to spot: the daily latte ($4 a day = a Sweet Rim worth of money each year) or pack of smokes, or the couple of drinks at a bar every night. Some are harder to spot.

I think mine became sporting goods in the past year. Applying the Sweet Rims theory, I came to the realization that I can’t be a skier and a snowboarder, it’s just not physically possible to put in the effort to keep up with both sports when the winter season is only so long. So I’ve made a promise to myself to pick one (probably skiing) and not sink any more money into the other. I sold my new boots and I’d sell the rest my snowboard gear if it was worth anything, but at 7 years old, it’s probably worth less than I would expend in time/effort to put it up for sale.

So what are your Sweet Rims? The default answer is “I don’t have any”...of course the person in that car wouldn’t think of his rims as something worth trading away in order to meet life’s goals.

I challenge you to think long and hard about this. It might be a few small things. If you really can’t think of anything, then I applaud your lifestyle and frugality, and aspire to be more like you!

This is really just an excuse to see if the 43things -> LJ posting thingy is working.

Venessa and I went house hunting last weekend. This is scary, I’m not ready to grow up and own a house yet.

My landlord offered to sell me the house I’m currently renting, but it’s a duplex so I would become the landlord of the other unit. It’s a nice place, but I’m not interested in being a landlord. Investigating my options has definitely got the ball rolling. Q gave me the name of a rock-star agent who’s been really helpful so far.