funny how quickly things change...

couple things happened recently.

we found out we weren't going to get the house on 199th, which put us back to square one. and the US treasury pumped three hundred billion dollars into the banking system to buy up mortgages and free up money for lending. this drove the interest rates down considerably. like as much as half a percent.

so for the same monthly payment, we realised we could afford a lot more. still would have been nice to have gotten 199th, since the lower interest rate would have meant saving a few hundred a month, but we knew we weren't going to find anything in that old price bracket. so we started looking at the up to $400k range. amazingly, we started finding nice houses we liked a lot.

we found three the first day out that were nice. first was a huge (2100 sf) split level, but very bland and boring. it reminded me of houses my friends grew up in back in the 80s... I just don't know if I'm ready to settle down for that yet. second was essentially a townhouse without shared walls. a small development of several cookie cutter houses squished onto a couple lots. not much yard of privacy, but amazing space and amenities indoors. if not for the busy street it was on, we would have gone for it.

we ended up choosing a bit smaller house that was also a bit less expensive, ONLY a paltry $383k. it's 70 years old, and has the accompanying issues with older houses, namely a small kitchen and tiny bathrooms. but it was immaculately maintained and had gorgeous detail work, as well as a large yard and a 1.5 car garage. we put in an offer that night.

miyuki would have preferred to see more houses in that price range, but I was worried about losing out on this house. it just went on the market, and an open house was planned for this weekend. we offered thursday night, and agreed to a counter the next day. amazingly, we paid full list price, but received a $5k closing cost concession. we did pay $10k less than the assessed value, so while we probably did leave a bit on the table by acting to quickly, we didn't get screwed or anything.

the inspection is tuesday. if all goes well then, we'll proceed with the financing and close april 24. we'll be completely moved in that following weekend.

the house doesn't need much work. we'll want to replace the washer and dryer soon, as they're pretty old. we'll want to pull the wallpaper out of the main bedroom and paint. mostly, we'll want to work on the yard. I want to rip up some of the grass and lay down gravel for extra parking, and tear up the back yard grass to put a vegetable garden in.

we went to the open house today, just to get a second look and make sure we didn't miss anything. while we were there, we met the neighbours from two doors down, and they seemed nice. a couple a bit older than us (late 30s, maybe?) with a son who looked about seven. they told us a bit about the 'hood. only a couple of the houses are rentals, it's a quiet dead end street, and there are a few kids around, as well as a shoreline sheriff and seattle PD officer who live nearby.

as we were leaving the open house, we figured we should introduce ourselves to the neighbours directly behind the house (there's a shared driveway on "our" lot, so it's probably good to make sure we get along), and that was an odd conversation. the guy barely opened his door, maybe four inches, and shook my hand but not miyuki's (I think he may have been muslim? african guy with a big beard that said he didn't shake women's hands). he said they'd raised kids there and been there about twenty years. I imagine we won't see them much. he seemed nice enough, it was just odd that he didn't really open the door.

we've been watching a lot of HGTV and getting ideas for what we want to do. I've also put calls in to a couple local movers to get quotes. I helped a friend move saturday and threw out my back. I'm just getting old, and would rather pay movers a few hundred dollars to do the heavy lifting for us...

so all in all, good news. we'll be out of this shitty apartment and into our first "home" by the end of april!