house

We went and looked at 2 houses today, the one that has been our favorite so far (we were seeing it for a third time) and a new one. The new one was pretty cute on the inside and nestled in a cul-de-sac; seemingly perfect until we walked outside. How we missed the giant high voltage electric towers surrounding the house is behind me. They tower over the house and the backyard buzzes like a hairdryer in a bathtub. Totally ruined everything. There's no way we would ever be able to resell that house if we bought it. I don't know exactly what it is but it's a giant field of power lines and towers that clearly is not going anywhere soon. It means there are no neighbors on that end but it also means the environmental risks could be something we might not discover until it's too late. Bummer.

So we were back at the first house, the one that has been the frontrunner since the start. Our realtor said she thinks we can start at $213,000 and see what the bank comes back with. It's priced at $269,000 (already well below our max of $300,000) and it's bank owned. So we can definitely start low and probably get it low. She said her goal would be to get us in it at $225,000 plus closing costs. And then we'd add a $15,000-$20,000 rehabilitation loan for new appliances, new carpet, hardwood floors, crown molding, painted walls, new kitchen cabinets, a rebuilt deck and a few other things. To have a mortgage payment well within in our means and a house with our paint/color/interior specifications and brand new appliances would be so nice. We would have a great house and still have a lot of money leftover each month for beefing up our savings account, taking vacations and not feeling bad about it and doing fun things on the weekend...and even putting more money into upgrading the house if we wanted. This wasn't what we had expected when we started. So we are really close to thinking about making an offer. No new places have come up since the last week beyond the electrical tower one so I'm thinking we might be right where we need to be. The bank usually takes a little longer to respond to offers than an individual seller does so we need to get started if this is where we'd headed. We have seen it a couple times, we keep thinking about it and talking about it, nothing else we have seen is comparable with all things considered, the price is amazing...Now we just need to know how the inspection would go. There are no visible problems and it was built in 2005...but who knows. We don't get an inspection until after we place an offer so I am anxious to get to that point so we know if we're in or out.

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House talk aside...we tried to go to Avatar at the IMAX tonight. Nathan said Avatar 3D at Christmas but has been raving about how good it was and had badly he wants to see it at the IMAX theater. So I finally agreed to go. Unfortunately the rest of the world did too. We got there an hour early and it was sold out and the line to get seats snaked around the whole theater lobby. I'm not sure if we will ever be able to get in! This is Nathan's second try for IMAX and my coworker also told me she had the same problem. Even if you buy tickets early in the day you still have to go a few hours early to stand in line for seats. It must be amazing.