A rollercoaster!

That’s what this week has been.

To catch you up on what’s been going on, I think we’ve pretty much decided to wait and get Travis a new car. The master cylinder is fixed, and we are $300 poorer, but at least the car works! We got a lot of advice (thank you, thank you!), and we feel like it is smarter to use the money we have saved for a down-payment on a house rather than spend it on a car right now. Hopefully, the ol’ Honda will keep ticking for several more months (or years!!) without needing any major repairs.

Last Friday, we looked at several houses in the Harvest/Monrovia area. Six had been lived in previously, and four or five were brand new. All of them were in the same general price range. The realtor who showed us the houses was awesome! We met her not really expecting much because I’d contacted her about a month or two ago about a house she was selling. We didn’t know anything about her, and we figured we’d end up using a realtor who had been recommended to us already (we’ve got the names of two or three). However, she really, really impressed us. She wasn’t pushy at all. She let us walk around and explore the homes on our own without hovering. She pointed out bad qualities and things that needed to be fixed as well as the good qualities. She was very knowledgeable about the whole process of buying a home. She just seemed like a real person…not a pushy salesman. It was great! So, that was a definite step in the right direction. I feel like we can actually do this with her help. As far as the houses that we looked at, they were awesome. I could see us living in any of them, really. They are all one-level, full brick homes with flat yards. But, here’s the problem–they are too expensive!

Looking for a way to be idiotic? Here’s how: Go look at several nice houses before you sit down and redo your budget to see what you can honestly afford.

Ok, we could afford them for sure with both of us working. But, in a few years when we (hopefully) have kids, I’m not going to be working…and we’ll be down to one income. Will we be able to afford that same house then? I know Travis will be getting raises between now and then. He should bump up to a DB3 in two years hopefully, which is supposed to be a $10,000 jump in salary. But, it’s probably not smart to assume that…not when you’re talking about a monthly mortgage payment.

Unfortunately, I got my heart set on one of the houses that we looked at Friday. It’s PERFECT. Perfect, perfect, perfect. And perfectly too much money. I was so excited Friday and Saturday…thinking that it was THE ONE. Then, we sat down with the dreaded all-powerful Excel spreadsheet, crunched the numbers, and boom. I was crushed. All of the sudden, he’s wondering if we need to just wait another year or two to buy. That house won’t be there next month most likely. My emotions swung from one extreme to the other in the span of a couple of days. Normally, I’m really not that emotional. Ask anyone who knows me very well. Travis is probably the crier in the family (shhh…don’t tell him I told you!). But, not the past couple of days. I shouldn’t have let myself get emotionally attached. That was a huge mistake. There will be other houses out there when we’re ready. They may not be as nice as what we were looking at, but they’ll be home.

So, after a lot of number crunching, Excel spreadsheeting, thinking, praying, crying, etc., the plan is that we’re going to look at some much cheaper (as in $40,000 cheaper!) houses tomorrow with Darlene, our realtor. I think there are 7 on the list. Wish us luck! Who knows what we’ll find. They won’t be like the ones last Friday, but that’s ok. This may be the convincing I need that we should just wait a while longer, save up a bigger down-payment, and be able to afford something nicer down the road.

We’ll see how it goes. I’m just glad to be back to my normal, mostly level-headed self, and I know Travis is too! Tomorrow, I’m going to attempt to be more objective, not get my hopes up, and not get attached to anything at first sight. This is a big decision, and rushing into it on an emotional whim would be stupid. Especially rushing into something we can’t afford on one income.

So, the search continues. Updates are sure to follow :)