The next biggest thing is very exciting for us. We have "officially" begun saving for our homestead!! That deserves several more exclamation points: !!!!!!!!!!!! We went to our credit union during my holiday vacation to meet with a mortgage counselor. Turns out my credit isn't nearly as dismal as I feared since I've worked the last three years to bring it out of the pits. The Tall Guy, bless his heart, has gone from zero credit to a terrific score after investing in a secured card last year. Since they take the average of ours scores, Mr. Counselor told us to raise mine by another 50 points and he'll give us a mortgage at 51/4%! Well thank you very much, that's one down.
Mr. Counselor turned us onto a program through the local housing authority (kind of a private/public partnership deal) that offers homebuying classes and a savings program. They teach us all about mortgage contracts, taxes, points, insurance and other mystifying stuff. PLUS - and here's the really amazing thing - they match every dollar we save with FOUR DOLLARS of their own up to $7,000!! And this is grant money, free and clear, to be used for down payment and closing costs! We're still overwhelmed by this. It's just enough to make everything possible within our time frame. Add the fact that housing prices are falling falling, and it's a great time to be a first-time homebuyer.
Please don't find me insensitive to the millions of people who have lost their homes, at least the ones who got caught in a bait & switch of early reset ARMs. But the truth is, we would have been hard pressed to purchase a decent place last year or two years ago before prices took a nosedive. All the economic hoopla aside (and I'm trying NOT to get polictical in this blog), some people really can benefit from this market mess. We'd be crazy not to.
We're not looking for much. We're pretty simple folks. We want a decent house, around 1,000 sf that we can move into right away. We're willing to do some work, but let's face it, we need a place to live while we're doing it. So major rehab is out of the question. Although my dream is to live in repurposed housing such as a firehouse or barn, I could be very happy with a small Craftsman bungalow on an acre or two of good land for gardening, pasture and Petanq - what bliss! We want a large bedroom, but don't require the "Master Suite" that so many people seem to need these days. When did we lose the ability to walk down the hall to the bathroom? The Tall Guy wants a game room and I've been promised a library/music room. To have my own piano again would be wonderful. And an entire room covered with shelves from floor to ceiling, and all those shelves filled with BOOKS, BOOKS and MORE BOOKS. I'm hyperventilating just thinking about it! Those two rooms will double as guest space thanks to convertible sofas. We'll have a garage & workshop with a pen in the back for goat & chickens. That's it. That's all we need and everything we want in life.
Sure, there's a wish list. Depending on where we end up, we'll be looking at different sources of renewable energy. Wind should be very productive in this area. I want to put in a labyrinth. We're planning to build a patio area with a quincho, which is kind of an enclosed barbecue pit that I first encountered in Argentina. Here are some terrific examples:
Can't you just picture yourself sitting there on a summer evening with a glass of something and a good friend or two?
So to wrap up, we're feeling very positive about the whole thing. Pinching pennies and saving like Scrooge, we'll find our home by next fall. Cross your fingers and wish us luck!
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