Catchup

There are three major things going on in my life at this point. The first one is my wife is pregnant and due January 1st. The next major occurrence is that we bought a house. The final major happening is one that I hope continues for a long time and that is I play, practice, and workout in order to be a good volleyball player.

My wife is now 15 weeks pregnant. When we weren't so busy with getting - and now fixing the house - I was making breakfast and really helping her out. I was so proud of myself. Every morning I would wake up and make eggs or oatmeal or pancackes. I was cleaning the apartment and I was doing everything I could to keep her stress level as low as possible. She had a really great first trimester. Now things are a bit more hectic.

We are in between moving from our apartment to our new home in Mount Laurel, NJ. We bought an outdated house in a nice neighborhood. I got burned back int he stock market crash of 2000. It seemed to me that the housing market was going through the same sort of phenomenon.

On June 25, 2007 we settled on a four bedroom two and a half bath house. The house originally came on the market in October of 2006 at 429,900. We first went to look at the house in mid April. It had just been reduced to 375,000. It needed a lot of work, but it backed up to open space, and in this part of New Jersey, that is a money maker. Everyone else was scared off because of all the painting and "fixxing-up" that needed to be done. Not us (mainly me)!

We put an offer in at 350k and 3k down. The seller's realtor was concerned because we had 100% financing and she thought 3k down was kind of low. So we upped the offer to 350k and 10k down. They countered at 373k. We bid 355k. They countered at 370k. We firmly bid 360k. They said they will wait for another offer. I was really ticked off. I thought it was rude that we would raise our offer by 5k increments and the seller would only lower by 2-3k. So we went to look at other options.

We went to see another house that was the exact same model. This one's kitchen was only about 5 years old. The carpets were in good shape. The walls were nicely painted. The landscaping was in order. They were asking 410k. It was great, I thought, that we had found another house. One that fit our needs, in the same town. Who cares that our mortgage payment was going to be 200-300 more per month. We walked out back. And there it was. "vrummm vrummm" They backed up to a busy street. And you could hear the incessant sound of cars driving by.

The good thing was we knew what we wanted. So we made it happen. We bid up to 370k and my back side felt a little invaded. But my brother-in-law made the right point. In 5 or 10 or 30 years, that 10,000 dollar difference won't mean squat.