::TD::

**O-Face**

So what is the dealio with your house situation anyway?

TheDuckis

Ha. I'll let you know as soon as we know. I had a little meltdown on Thursday. After being at this lender's beck and call for 3 days (seriously, jumping in the car to go scan and fax more documents every time she asked for them), she asked for an extension until tomorrow to give us an answer. Btch ruined my birthday. Anyway, after tomorrow we'll have until Wednesday to agree to the loan terms or not. If we don't agree we can walk away and get our earnest payment back.

I don't even know what I want anymore. I keep thinking maybe we should look in cheaper areas, but the difference isn't significant until you get about an hour south of where we are. For anything closer, by the time you factor in the extra commute time and gas prices it's a wash. And I certainly don't want to buy in an area that I'm not going to enjoy living in.

VarunaTT

Okay, in all honesty, I would ask you to look at some other ideas here.

You're planning on moving back to the East Coast in 3-5 years, right?  why bother buying in the first place?  Sure, there are LOTS of reasons to buy, but if you're already planning to move there is one major reason to not...convenience of lease. Either to time the move back or to break which is far cheaper and less legally binding than a mortgage.

There's a lot of freedom to be had with renting and I guess I'm just not sure about why the buying, since you already have a pretty large space and it's dog friendly.

TheDuckis

We're having some of those exact same thoughts, V. Regardless of whether or not we buy, we're looking to move out of our current place ASAP. I could write a book on the reasons, but basically the location sucks, the house has a ton of completely wasted space, and the yard is awful.

As far as moving back east goes, it's still our ultimate goal, but the timeline keeps getting pushed out. If H's company gets bought in 1.5-2 years, he'll have at least 4 years to fully vest with the buying company. He has a lot of equity that we'd be giving up if he walked away early. There's a chance a larger company will allow him to work remotely (which is the deal he had while we were dating), but it would still require a lot of travel back here. So we're going to have to maintain some kind of presence here as long as he's in this industry. I don't want to find ourselves 10 years down the road and still renting because we always thought we'd be moving back east in a year or two.

Finally, we have a pretty big chunk of cash sitting in savings that we've been meaning to invest. The market out here is (believe it or not) pretty depressed, and is just now starting on an upswing. Interest rates are crazy low, but expected to rise by up to a point in September-October. So we were hoping to sink some cash in now, secure a nice low monthly payment, and ride the market back up. Obviously like any investment, it's a risk, and that's the part we're struggling most with right now.

VarunaTT

Ah.

I do know what you mean about the timeline.  DH's company was on a 5 year buying timeline.  We're still here, 7 years later.  Granted, it's paid off for us and if this stupid freakin' company ever sells, we're in for a nice to holy god nice chunk of change, but there are time I just want to walk from it too.  I would've gone crazy staying in our apartment for this length of time.