House and Home

What is it about home buying that is so... frightful?

You'd think, as a married lady, I wouldn't be afraid of commitment.  I mean, after all, I've committed to waking up next to the same man for the rest of my life.  Then, I went and committed to raising a child with him and the bajillion endless responsibilities that entails.  Somehow, neither of those seemed all that foreboding.  

But a house?  A mortgage?  I shake in my boots.  Some day.  Maybe these low prices and rates will hold off until I'm less fearful?

I know there are positives to home buying.  There are driveways and back yards.  You can paint and not have to repaint 12 months later.  There's a much smaller chance that your car will get towed for the slightest reason. Oh, and you can throw a housewarming party that may or may not include a remote control floating fish!

Plus, on one of the hottest nights of the year, you're not likely to find yourself standing outside your building at 10pm, having almost gotten your kid to sleep before the entire building's fire alarm went off.  You wouldn't have to take his confused, swaddled burrito of a self down five flights of stairs, praying the alarm doesn't cause permanent auditory damage, only to find out there was no fire.  No problem at all.

On the up side, when a weird bubble in the ceiling appears above your bathtub, and you think it's probably a bad leak that is causing significant damage to the drywall and over years will be a real issue, you can just call the maintenance guy to patch it up real quick, and know that by the time it's more than a nuisance, you'll have a new address and your security deposit safely tied to a new building.

So J-Man and I aren't going to move to a house just yet.  Maybe next year?  And for the first time since high school, I will have the same mailing address for two consecutive years.  

In the meantime, can we keep coming to your houses, parking in your driveways, and playing in your backyards while we work up some courage?