Why?

We have started this blog in order to share our house hunting experiences with others.
About six months ago we decided to go ahead and jump (more like a slow motion hop) into the housing market. We were inspired by the realization that we are paying far to much in rent for a home that we can only change or improve minimally! So we called our real estate agent (who happens to be Candice's Uncle) and started looking. We looked at one house that was a beautiful home, but we could not afford it, and thankfully we did not fall in love with it. We are completely insane, er...ambitious, maybe even realistic, and would rather buy a house that needs a litttle work than one that has already been updated and perfected. After discussing the possibilities of buying the house, ie. if we had enough money, perfect jobs, money trees, etc., we decided to call the real estate agent (hereafter known as JEFF, sometimes in all caps and sometimes normal...depending on the mood, obviously). Anyway, as any good real estate Uncle might, he said....

It's important when looking to know how much money you can spent on a house. Knowing this can keep you from looking and falling in love with a house that is way above your limit. Think about what you want in a house, and then call this guy [a mortgage broker], and let him know that we are looking around.

Good advice! I can't stress that enough. DON'T TRY TO BUY A HOUSE WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT YOU WANT!!!!! That helped in our budget and marriage. A house that needs work is always less expensive than the one that has already had all the work done. So we know our monetary limit. So with that knowledge we began the search for our first home!