anyway.

GRATS, bro!  That is very exciting.

Peace,

-Troy

I've said this eight or nine times in private, but congratulations!

Also, see you this weekend *in* said house.

yrs—
—Ben

Congratulations, neighbor!
A couple of months ago there was this odd little moment when I had a telephone in my hand and was about to call Ingrid???s day care provider, who also does real estate, because there was this house across the street from me for sale, and I had a little fantasy that some really wonderful people that I knew might buy it. I didn???t even think about whether the people I knew would even want to live there. I just thought, if I could pick my neighbors, they would be them. I wrestled with whether it would be pushy and imposing if I asked Vicki to do some investigating on the house and to give me what info she could so that I could pass it on to said wonderful people.
I am very happy for you all, and I hope you???ll forgive me if much of my joy comes from a selfish place. I really wanted ya???ll to buy that house because I wanted you as neighbors.

Wonderfull. Home ownership can seem intimidating at times, but it's also cool to feel like the place really is yours to with as you please.

Frank

Congratulations!  You're landed gentry now!

Congratulations to the whole Baker family!

Awesome!

Congratulations!

That is fantastic.

How big is the moat?

What kind of portcullis did you decide on?

How many murder holes per square foot of outer wall?

"Impulse Buy" means it's not thought-of as much as you should have. It means you are having second thoughts or are unsure.

Some decisions are so big, that it doesn't matter how much you think them through, they feel like "impulse-buy".

This is a roundabout way of saying. It's normal to worry.

Now I'll congratulate you :)

Yay!!! It's official!  You guys so deserve to have a place of your own. And a big yard for the kids to play in. Wheeee!!!

And you so deserve to be investing your money in your life and equity for you & the kids, not just paying somebody else to keep a building up.

Yeah, what Emily said, too. Paying the mortgage is like paying yourself to live in your house. Well sorta, except there's the whole bank loan thing. Even when things break, it's like "MY toilet that I own needs replacing." Paying rent isn't even close to being sorta like that.

Grats.

I don't imagine they do this in the US, but one of the fun things about buying a house in Commonwealth countries is that when you sign the paperwork it says you're "seized of an estate in fee simple". I love these medieval holdovers.

Julia, apparently the Bakers didn't satisfy that impulse.

Guys, I'm excited about the house painting party this weekend!

Buying a house is freaking scary: Even if the financial impact isn't severe (and it usually is—was for me)—and the amount of time commitment doesn't worry you (did me) ... the mountain of paperwork alone that you have to sign is *daunting.*

But congrats—definitely in order.

-Marco

Congratulations!  I just bought a house, too, and there's something satisfying in settling in and thinking, "This is my chunk of land."

Of course, it also means that I'll be going up on an extension ladder in the near future to reattach a piece of vinyl siding that started to blow off.

But it's *my* piece of vinyl siding....

Heh,

The longer we've been in our house the more Ruth and I are like...you know...it was really NICE living in an apartment.

Garbage disposal on the fritz, call the landlord.
Toilet backed up, call the landlord.

Beautiful garden landscaping...didn't have to do any of it.
Snow removal and sidewalk shoveling...didn't have to do any of it.
Raking the leaves...didn't have to do any of it.
Biannual exterminator service...didn't have to do any of it.

Didn't have to replace the filters in the furnace, or call to have the airconditioner serviced, or install a new garage door opener...

Didn't have to care if the cats ruined the carpet, or suitcases marred the walls, or the gutters were clogged.

Didn't have to take time off to be home when the cable guy showed up, or to sign for a package...landlord took care of it.

Yup...there's something to be said for the convenience of apartment living and not having to do any of the work...

Now that I'm a homeowner and get the privilege of doing all that myself...I really miss my land lord :-)

Woot!  Congratulations, folks!

We're coming up on year 10(?) in our house, and rarely regret it.  Now you can start counting down to your mortage burning party. :)

James

Congratulations!

And "Yay" on the house painting party. Are you going for interesting colors? Definitely one of the pluses of owning our house was tearing out all the previous owners horrible horrible wallpaper and painting the house inside and out in wonderfully bright and varied colors (but then, we have the endless grey of Portland winters to deal with, so bright colors are important).

Congratulations!

there is clearly far too much money in writing awesome games :-D

Congratulations!

Herzlichen Glueckwunsch!

Charles' house definitely sets the standard for color! :)

And yeah, there are a lot of responsibilities that come with home ownership, but it's sort of like having kids: it gives you other benefits that change your life and make it all worth while.

Congratulations. And, as Marco said, the terror is normal. Breathe deeply, relax, and exhibit bourgeois values.

Whoa! You're all growned up now. I hope you have many years of enjoyment in your home.

When I bought my first (only) house, the third night I lived in it we had a terrible rain storm. Water ran down through the walls and dripped from the light fixture in the entry. All my worst fears about buying the house were coming true.

Never happened again. We found the hole where the wind blew the rain in and plugged it the next day.

It's a trial, but it feels good to have your home be YOURS.

Congratulations, guys!

Also, we bought a house one day apart! This house-buying stuff is crazy. I got mine on the 20th and still can't believe I own it.

If the market where you're at is anything like the market where I'm at, you picked a good year to buy. 'Grats.

I love these medieval holdovers.
Yeah, Mike.  That kind of language is common.  It may be interesting to note that a lot of modern (American, at least) real estate laws date back to England in the time of the Black Death.

Congratulations to you as well, Clinton.

I wish my landlord was as awesome as Ralph's apparently were...

I'm back at the apartment, taking a break from spackling the downstairs. My Mom is pre-treating the upstairs. The older boys are playing with 'Ligao' (curtesy of Ben) in the finished attic. The baby is so excited by his new-found ability to climb stairs, and the wide-open rooms for rolling balls through, that he can't sleep. We've got gallons of paint in greens, blues, yellows, apricot/orange/peachs, and plum/cranberry. Our back porch is flooded with boxes. I have a nasty head-cold, and it's a grey snow-showery day, but it's a really beautiful day, for me.

No! It's not good! It's bad. It means you've invested in your little slice of the middle of nowhere and won't be moving closer to civilization.

+1d6 sad! I rolled a 5. :(

Sell house. Buy house closer to city. City good.

Also, congratulations.

Matt, we can be your 'friends in the country' for when the rush of city life gets too much.

Congratulations, very, very cool!!!

Terry and I are looking to buy in the next year or so. I completely empathize with all the emotional ups and downs. But you guys are smart people. I have every confidence that you will all make it work.

Did you go with a mortgage? If so, what kind? I've known a few people who were burnt by Adjustable Rate Mortgages after the initial low interest rate period expired. ARMs can be work in very controlled circumstances.

Rock,
John

Kick ass.

Here's the weird part: If you had asked us on Dec. 21 if we were going to buy a house in the next three (let alone two) months, we would have said no. "Maybe in the next year, definitly in the next three years." we would have said.

But our friend Julia (hi Julia!) e-mailed me on Dec. 27 and said "Hey, the house across the street from me's for sale - wanna buy it?"

So all that looking-for-a-house, waiting-to-see-if-this-is-the-house, having-that-offer-fall-through stress? None of that. Just looking at the house on Dec. 29, putting in the offer on Jan. 3, getting accepted Jan. 7, getting a loan (yes it's Fixed Rate), getting a lawyer, getting home ower's insurance, and closing! Everything was really smooth. Which is a great way to start a new phase in a new home.

That's similar to the way we fell into ours—we rented a house and about a year later our landladies talked about selling it.  We told them, "That's OK, hopefully the next people will just keep renting to us."

The next morning, Jennifer and I had a talk—while we had slept, we'd decided that we wanted the house.  When we called up our landladies, they put everything on greased skids and we were (sooner than I imagined) soon homeowners.

"greens, blues, yellows, apricot/orange/peachs, and plum/cranberry"

Oooh colors! Yay!

What kinds of blues and greens?

and yay fixed rates!

Blues= Light shading towards sea for the living room, spring sky for the kid's ceiling/two walls, dark kind of slate for the other kid's wall (fourth wall to be green chalkboard). Eventually the kitchen gets some blueberry-type thing, maybe a periwinkle deal.

Greens= Light slightly sagey for living room trim, deep ivy for our bedroom trim, deep warm army/khaki called'dragon hide' to go around the chalkboard.

My friend Mel and I just finished washing everything down with TSP, and she and Vincent are over there now starting to prime. Any time now, Ben and co will show up here, and we'll go paint!

Very, very cool. Multi-colored rooms are lovely, and a wall of chalk board is fantastic.

Matt and Kim just re-did one of their rooms in light sagey green, and it came out very nicely (they had it yellow before).

I'm very happy for you guys!

The painting is nearly finished, and this weekend we tackle the floor.

Congratulations, Vincent and Meg!

Man, I'm late to the party. Congratulations!

The best hiccup in the first year or so is when you run across a problem say with the plumbing or something and you think, you know, I should call the dam' landlord about that, and then you stop and say oh, right.