House Hunt

OK, now that the job transitioning is actually taking place, we have exactly 6 weeks to find ourselves a new roof for our heads. And I think I have just about determined that I am not a big fan of major adult decisions - specifically, do we take the plunge into home ownership? I kind of like signing away my monthly rent check and being able to call someone to take care of repairs, pests (oh, the pests! I think I might be able to handle anything after the past year's mouse genocide at 800 Bashford Lane. Anything but spiders. Or cockroaches/waterbugs...Or house centipedes...Or Sprickets - commonly known as cave crickets, but we always called them Sprickets growing up for spider/crickets...), etc. but I know full well that there is no return on continuing to do that in the long run.

So I finally did contact a loan officer this week to at least have some sense of what we qualify for, and the good news is that we do indeed qualify. Said lender graduated from my high school 5 years after I did, reminding me, as I'm too frequently reminded, that I am old, and probably should have some equity by now! And the connection with him was made because the realtor we hope to deal with if we do grow up and decide to buy is my old high school gym teacher. It's a small world after all! I'd forgotten she was doing real estate part time now, and we ran into her at an open house just before Christmas.

The loan we're qualified for would cover a small three bedroom row house in the Warwick Village section of Del Ray with a finished basement and smallish patio/yard. I'm not looking for much more (though that would limit our offspring to 2 for certain) - just begging to have a living room of my own - I know the toys would migrate, but if their primary home was a nice basement, I'd be ever so thrilled. Could probably get slightly more bang for the buck further out in Fairfax, but we really want to stay in the City of Alexandria. I was assured that we were actually well qualified for a higher loan, but the mortgage then creeps toward unmanageable. Under these terms, we're looking at $1,000 more than we pay in monthly rent, which we may be able to do w/ our salary increases, but there would go what little entertainment budget we have. Sparing the change for my wine and Starbucks addictions may just tilt me back to renting...