Self Induced Torture.

The wife and I are not happy with our current living situation.  The apartment we are currently living in was chosen more for location and actual availability than any other reason.  Our lease is signed through the end of June, and we are hard at work trying to find someplace more suitable...taking out time to find the right combination of location, availability AND actual desire to live there.

For a while, we were looking at houses, but given the lack of action on our house that is for sale, our most recent search has been for a suitable half-of-a-duplex, or a town home.  We have found several that meet our criteria, and dropped off applications at a few places.  The nice thing, as much as we don't enjoy living at our current place, it is most a 'taste' issue...and a lack of washer/dryer issue.  If this round of applications fall through, there is nothing keeping us from going month-to-month at our current spot until we find something better, so, there is no real pressure.

We have never been told we couldn't buy a 2nd house while waiting for the place in Belfair to sell...we have just kind of convinced ourselves that first of all,in the current loan market, we thought we would have a hard time getting loan approval.  Also...it's not the safe thing to do.  We do have a decent amount of money in savings...enough to put 5-10% down on some of the houses we have looked at...but, say we do that, and then we have a problem with the house that is for sale.  The one offer we did have would have had us having to cut a check to close.  It would have been reimbursed through my job, because I have relocation expenses, but it has made me extremely cautious. 

So cautious in fact, that SWMBO and I decided we had best stop even looking at houses for a while, lest we find something that tempt us into reckless behavior. 

That lasted about two weeks...and then we started looking again, because...well, looking at houses and dreaming is fun. 

This weekend, I am dealing with a worst case scenario. 

While cruising some of the back roads between Richland and Benton City, we came across a house for sale on some acreage.  Well, a double wide on 1.3 acres...but the price looked okay, and more importantly, they were advertising an open house on Sunday, so after church we swung by. 

We liked what we saw...and, the price is very alright.  The Price recently came down over 15k, and the real estate agent said the seller is 'motivated'.  Trust me, I know about motivated sellers.  The house is a 2002 model..and very nice inside.  The yard around the house is about 1/3rd of an acre, with a fenced in 1 acre square behind the house.  There is a nice view around 360 around the property, Red Mountain wine country to the north and west, and the Chandler Butte Ridge Line to the south. 

In short...this property and house is EVERYTHING is was dreaming about buying before we moved out here. 

Immediately after leaving, I told my wife I wanted to call a mortgage guy on Monday.  Having done a little bit of number crunching, I knew that the mortgage for this place would come in $150 a month less than the new places we had been talking about renting.  I wanted a lender to tell us no, instead of us selling ourselves short.  My wife agreed.  She has no interest in living in double-wide in town...but on a little land, she is fine with it...plus, everything inside looked very nice and modern.  Of course, it could be that 5 months of living in a 900sf apartment that was 20 years past it's prime was skewing her perspective.

Now, after sitting around the apartment for a few hours...all the 'what if something goes wrong' doubt has begun creeping in...to me, not her...and it's making me mad at myself. 

One of the reasons I used a Robert Heinlein phrase and quote to set the theme for this blog, is I wanted to set a new theme for my life.  Quitting a very secure federal government job to move to the Tri-Cities was a big step...and one of the least cautious things I have done in my life.

Heinlein preaches taking big bites...renting a nicer apartment than what we have now is the safe, cautious thing to do.  Making an honest attempt to procure this property....that is the big bite thing.  My wife's eyes lit up talking about putting a few goats out on the fenced acre.  The front lawn has plenty of room for a few fruit trees.  There is plenty of room on the roof for solar panels.  This is the kind of place we have talked about wanting to get us outside of town, and begin working on a basic amount of self-sufficiency. 

And still I'm scared about what if. 

I hope I follow through and call this mortgage guy tomorrow.