Huh.

[flea]

So I applied for a mortgage this morning, to two different folks, for comparison's sake, and heard back by the end of the day. And, as it turns out, both people are willing to lend us 50+% again as much as we really want to borrow. I had been looking at the $175K price point; both people said we could be approved for close to $300K with no real trouble. And this in this era of the media trumpeting the renewed conservatism of lenders, and the difficulty of even people with good credit to get mortgages.

It is sort of gratifying to hear that your financial conservatism, minor sacrifices, and general prudent behavior (as well as luck) over the years will lead you into a positive position with mortgage lenders. It is also a little tempting to take them up on their offers, since the larger amount would almost certainly enable us to buy the kind of house we really want, in the location we really want - or at least get us lots closer than the figure we had been contemplating.

But, since we ARE financially conservative, I think we will continue to look under $200K. We need to start putting some more money towards retirement, on which we have been skimping these past years; if I work, we will have child care expenses; I am in school, and once we move out of state the costs will go up; it would be nice to have some money to buy furniture (we need a new bed, and Casper is sleeping on an Aerobed, and we want to buy a real couch rather than the futon, and Dillo does not possess a dresser and really, neither do I, and I could go on) and do garden and house projects and not have to worry so much about every penny.

But it feels good to know we have options. In some way it feels validating - these 6 years have been worth it. Silly, but there it is. Our society measures worth financially. We are upper middle class, after all!

Comments

[serrana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we found that the banks were willing to give us a lot more mortgage than we realistically thought we could make payments on.

That said, my father's longstanding advice has been, it's usually a better idea in the long term to stretch a bit at first to get a house you'll stay in, than to buy a "starter" house and sell it and get something else less than ten years later. His thinking is that the buying-and-selling costs enough that it's just not worthwhile.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I forwarded you that link, but the $300K houses I browsed all looked like Evil McMansions. (I actually typed "McMansons" at first, but they would only actually kill you with their tacky excessiveness.) Don't live in one of those!!

Do you have a mortgage calculator at your disposal? Back when I had money, I used to go to my credit union's website and play around with their calculators to find out exactly what I'd pay per month. It was kind of entertaining, until you hit the screen where it showed accrued interest by year and cumulative, and you could scroll down to see that you would pay 2x or 3x the price of the house by the 30th year.

[gchick.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd do fine, but I also knew you'd worry. Now on to finding a great place!