The current debate: Brighton house

Brian and I are confused about what to do with the house.

His Uncle called the other day to chat and repeated a lot of what we already knew and what a lot of people are advising us to do. Ever since that conversation and the fact that the builders may/may not increase the rate…we have been hesitant. Papers were signed as we can back out at any time and that gives us time to think. We will find out today about the price and we will go from there. If they don’t change the price on us I believe we are moving ahead, cautiously, while waiting for the items in the provisional contract to happen. Neither of us are sure of anything…

I thought writing out a list of pros/cons of reasons to buy or not to buy will help us sort things out…

1)      We aren’t married. Brian and I have no plans of separating or anything like that but legally we should be married. We are, technically, common law married thanks to SC laws but that doesn’t/shouldn’t count for this. Both of us recognize this but are torn.

2)      We both like the house and location. Neither of us had to compromise like a lot, if not most, of people do. It is in the perfect location and has everything we are/were looking for on the best lot we have seen. Sure there are other houses but I have a sinking feeling that if we don’t get this one, we will be comparing everything to this one and be disappointed in ways with another choice/option. We don’t really want to regret our first home purchase. We have no plans to buy another after this one so it’s not like we can live with the disappointment because next time we will get what we want. We plan on living in the house we buy for a very long time.

3)      There are talks that the FHA loan program (first time buyer) will be eliminated. Unless Brian and I both somehow double both of our salaries, we won’t be able to buy a house for a very long, long time.

4)      The time to buy is now. Prices are still low, may get a little lower, but it is expected/projected to start rising within a year. If we don’t buy this house, the plan is to wait a year and save up some more and hope that the FHA loan program is still around and that prices haven’t gone up. I am not sure we can count on both of those happening at this point. We almost hope prices don’t go up but that means the economy won’t get better which we of course want to happen.

5)      We need to wait for a few things to fall into place and we should probably wait and let things settle before we make such a big change. I agree with that but with the provisional contract, as it stands right now, we have until September for everything to fall into place and the item that we should wait on will happen way before that so we will have time to let the dust settle from that while being able to back out if the dust doesn’t settle like it is expected too.

6)      Buying a house is a risk under any circumstance. Without taking risks you never get anywhere. I hate risks…I hate change…I hate making decisions based on unknowns. However, sometimes you have to bite your lip, take the plunge and hope for the best. If everything goes to plan, and it really should it is really just a matter of when, we can afford the house. It will be tight for the first year or two but I have been told it is tight for everyone the first few years unless you are Bill Gates. Plus Brian and I are willing to sacrifice a bit of our social life to own a home that we want. Plus, with the current interest rates, it is the best investment out there.

7)      People think we are rushing into it. I can see how they believe that but we have been asking all the right questions, people have just been getting back to us really quickly. Plus our “rush” was because we didn’t want them to sell the only lot we wanted/would work. We have definitely been doing our homework and my mom tells us we have been looking into this a lot more seriously then she was when they bought their first condo. If this house was not as perfect as it is we wouldn’t have given it a second thought and honestly didn’t think seriously about buying it until they lowered the price by a little over 15k. Plus, obviously, we still aren’t sure about it and have till September, basically, to make a decision.

We wish someone would/could just tell us what to do and what the right decision is but no one can. I am getting a bit ahead of ourselves as we don’t even know if the house will stay at the right price but we have to plan/think about as much as we can so we can make the best decision we can. If the price gets increased and they wont work with us we are bailing so this is a mute point. If not….this is where we currently stand. It just stinks. On Saturday we were both pretty gung ho about it…now we are not sure.

ETA: The sales lady just emailed and the price was approved