Congratulations! Buying a house is extremely scary, but once you make it happen, it feels really great to have a home of your own.
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The part I found baffling about buying a house was that everyone thought we weren’t spending enough. Our mortgage lender was willing to lend us lots more money than we were willing to borrow. our realtor thought we should spend more (I was actually quite happy with her otherwise, she did a great job on convincing the sellers to sell to us, and not hold out for another offer.) I was all “jesus, I don’t want to spend this much, let alone three times as much!”.
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The worst for us on this front has been his parents. They keep giving mixed messages. One minutes it’s a lecture on making sure we know our budget - what the monthly payment would be with insurance, taxes, etc. with money left for utilities, food, fun, etc. and not spending more than we can afford (to which I want to respond “I’m 40 years old. I can handle a household budget, thank you”). The next minute his mom is sending us Zillow listings for houses many tens of thousands of dollars above what we’ve said was our absolute maximum and saying she knew it was above our budget but it was very nice and worth looking at. Like, I’m sure million dollar homes are very nice, too, but I can’t afford them so what’s the point in looking at them!?
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That’s very exciting! I hope everything goes smoothly for you 
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That’s my experience with all the parents I have too. I just accept they’re trying to be the best parents they can.
Hope it all goes smoothly.
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That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling since we started looking into financing the renovation project of my parental home. This is a terrible time to be spending so much money on a house but on the other hand waiting is not going to make the situation any better. Our project also includes a certain amount of regret that I cannot turn off completely (yet) because this was supposed to happen pre-pandemic but did not–for reasons.
I remember our first time financing (this apartment): the amounts of money were so far beyond what I ever dreamed/nightmared of handling, it was daunting then and it is daunting now.
What I remember from last time gives me hope though, the financial anxiety receded for the most part once we had moved in and everything was settled. In the end, it all worked out and that’s the thing that is keeping me going now.
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Just found out that my daughter has got the same teacher in Y4 as she had in year 1. Whom she didn’t like. Poop
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We had the same experience. I was nervous enough about the amount we had privately calculated that we could afford, once you factor in property taxes, escrow, PMI, etc; but when the mortgage guy told us we could borrow almost twice that, my mind was boggled. I was sat there thinking, “what on earth would we eat!? It certainly wouldn’t be food from the grocery store, because they expect you to pay for that.”
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“That’s not our problem sir, we hold a debt secured on a valuable and immobile asset.”
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We had a weird experience just now.
We already know exactly how much we want to spend at this stage and how much of that we need to finance. The only question was if we could optimize the interest rates somehow. (Turns out we can’t really not right now anyway).
We have a special type of savings account that comes with a guaranteed low-interest loan (under certain conditions). I just emailed them to ask if and how we would be able to use that. Instead of answering my questions, they attempted to sell us on a bigger contract that we would have to “pre-finance” over several years costing us more just in interest than just taking out the cash and financing directly via the bank. The guy kept telling us “you’re tech people, you’re good with numbers, you get this, right?” and then was all surprised pikachu face when we got back to him and told him we had looked at the numbers and they didn’t add up and sorry (not sorry) he is not getting the contract. And I tell you something: that guy tried to call us all the time. I had a bad feeling about it from the start and my gut was right. It was a load of BS he tried to sell us on that would have cost us a ton of money.
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I’m seeing now how 2007 happened.
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I got trapped with one mortgage provider after taking out my first mortgage because the amount I was eligible for went down.
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The good news is the teacher had three years to mature.
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My aunt passed away on the 18th in a weird combination of expectedly and unexpectedly. She had been in the hospital for months trying to recover from complications after a surgical procedure on her esophagus, but she finally decided she wanted to go home. She would be home and was expected to pass after a few weeks under palliative care. Unfortunately, something happened and she started bleeding internally and passed away before she could go home.
So, just because life, various members of my family have now caught Covid during gatherings discussing the funeral. As of yesterday, that now includes my dad, and we were around him at the viewing yesterday before he took a test that came up positive. So now we’ve been exposed. No symptoms so far, but it’s only been a day and I believe the usual incubation period is 2 - 14 days.
Funeral is on Friday. It’s going to be a mess with people wanting to be there who may still be infected and I don’t know how that’s going to be managed. And I’m a pallbearer, so I pretty much have to go.
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I’m sorry for your loss.
An always difficult time to navigate suddenly getting moving goalposts is tough. Wishing you and yours well.
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Terribly sorry for your loss. I also hope all COVID cases are mild and contained.
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So far, all seem to be mild, and some have already gotten over it.
Thanks for the well wishes all.
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Ooh, what a pickle! Sorry for the loss of your auntie, these are difficult times as they are without losing any loved ones. Sending all the good vibes I can muster.
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So… Remember that possible herniated disc my wife had? Turns out that was breast cancer that spread to her spine. The pain was the tumour pushing against it. In the hospital now, she’s got a biopsy scheduled for Monday (could be earlier if we’re super lucky) to determine the next steps.
So how am I doing? Not… Not super well.
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That’s some serious shit. My brother also had cancer in/around the spine, and despite the fact they had to operate through his chest to get to it, he came out of it OK. Here’s hoping you guys are similarly lucky.
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