House Hunters?

Yesterday Ryan and I went to the bank just to basically ask questions and get more information on mortgages, and buying a house. Thankfully we've done our homework on it already because the guy we talked to spoke very quickly, and used a lot of acronyms, and if I hadn't researched it before hand I would never have known what he was talking about!

We got some pretty encouraging news. Mainly, we were given a quote of what the average costs for PMI, (see, an acronym), taxes in the area we're looking in, homeowners insurance, and mortgage payments on a house in our price range would be each month. We were very pleasantly surprised! The quote was actually less than what we're paying in rent now, and about 300-400$ less than what we were thinking it would be!! Even though it was just an average quote, and not what our payments definitely will be, we were very happy with the number.

The only downside is that we found out we cannot get pre-approved for a loan until we have a down payment. Plus the banker recommended having money set aside for some, or all of the closing costs. Our plan is to have the seller cover the closing costs, but it is smart to have the money on hand just in case the seller doesn't go for it.

So now we basically have the huge goal of saving $7,000 by sometime next April, or May. That will give us about 3 months to get approved for a loan, find a house, and close on it. It's going to take a whole lot of sacrifice on our parts...... no vacations, no going out to eat, and only renting Redbox movies.... but it's worth it! By this time next year we should be home owners..... or else we'll be right about to be kicked out of our apartment because our lease will be up. haha