I've been meaning to post this for about a month now. I've been looking for a new house for a year with my husband and although he was eager to buy (first time homeowner) I was resistant to the prices in the areas we were looking, I pushed hard and finally a short sale came up - it had issues - mold - drainage problem- you know- the real sexy stuff! :) But it was $100k less than anything we were looking seriously prior to this house and bigger than all of those houses, not to mention a much smarter layout/floorplan! The negotiations were awful - very touch and go and never for certain and we even had a sketchy issue with getting bank approval before we did the mold repair but we persevered and we got through, and our mortgage is not $150 less than our rent was!!! And the best part is that we're in like a tiny pocket of a different zip code to the main city we live in and it gives us the physical location of being near everything but the zip code puts us in a much better zip code without having to live nay further and we don't have to pay separate city and county taxes b/c technically we're outside the city limits (just barely!) AND - and first I was mad b/c the subdivision has only one way in and one way out to the main interstate which is not a "friendly walk" but then I found out that the subdivision has a walking path cut-through that puts you out right behind a drugstore that is about 2 blocks from my job - so I went from a 30 mile each way commute to a 2 minute drive/10-15 minute walk! Score, score, score! Can we say 'score'? So excited - I knew you guys would love to hear this as well. It pays to persevere!
