Ninety Days

It’s always nice to be offered money. And not from the widow of a dead Nigerian prince, for a change.

No, I just met with a mortgage specialist and nailed down some of the details for a pre-approved mortgage from my bank. Despite the current housing crisis, I should at least give the search a shot, so now things are finally in motion. The mortgage was the easy part, though — actually finding a decent house is going to be the painful part.

It’s not like the market is completely dry; there are still houses to be had, but I have to be careful. My somewhat limited mobility prevents me from rapidly running around from place to place. I need something with relatively good public transit connections. I don’t really know what a lot of neighbourhoods are like. I don’t want something that’s on the verge of falling apart, too small, too shoddily built, too heat-inefficient, too crime-infested, etc. But I can’t be too picky either, since my budget does put a limit on what I can look for.

Hopefully I won’t let desperation pressure me into making a bad choice now that I’m under a time limit. The pre-approval isn’t a commitment, but a current special discount rate will have expired by the time the pre-approval period ends, and house prices will have gone up even more (right now the average price is going up by something like $1,000 per day), so if I don’t get one within the next ninety days I may as well just wait until the cycle busts again. Considering the current furor over oil though, that could be a while…

I think I really need to do this, though. I’ve wasted too much of my life putting off plans and purchases for some future ‘settling down’ time that never seemed to come, so now’s the time.