hit the brakes

ugh.

It looks like things with the house are not going to go as hoped.  Apparently, T’s ex’s lender somehow (despite T not being on the application) didn’t realize that T was not going to stay on the loan (wtf), so it has to go into underwriting again.  This is after two months.  It looks like they will simply sell instead.

Which is all fine and good, especially because it is almost for certain that T will get more money from selling.  Except that the house won’t be listed until April at the earliest (if her ex doesn’t drag her feet).  That means it likely won’t be sold/settled until end of May.  That means we can’t get started on any house hunting until around May, which is when the housing market really starts getting competitive.  We can’t afford to be competitive.  We can’t offer more than asking.  We can barely afford asking.  Not just that, but we’d likely not be in a house until July or August at the earliest.  That’s months from now to continue living so far apart.

So I told T that I think we should just try to rent.  She doesn’t want to rent long term, but I’m trying to get her to understand that we’ll likely be priced out of the market by next year.  We’re almost priced out as it is, and the  market is only predicted to continue going up.  Our salaries are not going to pick up comparably.  She doesn’t like this, neither do I, but I can’t see anyway around it, other than intending to be long-term renters, or to move to a cheaper area.

This whole situation has already caused too many fights, and I can see why someone wouldn’t want to get involved with a person who still owned property with an ex.  I’m not saying I’m not still glad I’m with T, but it’s so incredibly frustrating to have our future depend on her ex.  I’m supposed to simply put my life on hold because of her stupid, fucking ex.

I just want to move forward.

Big Updates

It seems that a lot has gone on in the past almost two months.

First off the bat, I got engaged!  We’re getting married in October, and things are already lining up well, so that is a relief!  We’re definitely planning a very low-key wedding, so that is helpful. But other than doing the planning we have to do right now, we’re putting it off, because…

We’re trying to buy a house.  The one big hitch (other than having not enough/barely enough money for the up-front costs) is that T still owns her house with her ex. ugh.  Her ex  finally did agree to buy her out, at less than half the equity, after futzing around for two months, but now her ex is going to require her to be out by the end of March.  We were hoping she could stay until at least April because we can’t get going on our house stuff until we have cash in hand from the house.  Of course the market is so expensive that it will still be quite hard to afford anything.  It’s incredibly frustrating.

The other option was to sell the house, but her ex refused to do that unless everyone was out of it, and since T actually lives there, plus has pets, that was unrealistic.  Plus we knew she would drag it out as long as possible, and we want to start our life without her.

I’m going to tell you, it’s a lot of big stuff all at the same time.  (T also started a new job this month.)  We have talked about just renting for a year, but we have four pets between the two of us, and we’d end up paying just as much as, if not more than, a mortgage.  We’re also worried we’ll get priced out of the market if we wait because we’re barely able to be in the market now, and prices will only continue to go up.  Renting isn’t completely off the table, though.  It’s just not our first hope.

I’m going to try to blog on a more regular basis.  I’ll try to give you updates on the house and the wedding.

Hope your Monday treats you well!