House hunting, Week #1

Dear hubby and I went to look at 7 houses this weekend with our realtor. It was a lot of fun, but I haven't felt like I've found THE ONE. Troy was about ready to jump and make an offer on this one, listed at $149,900. He absolutely loved this house!! Mostly because it is 2,200 square feet, which is by far the biggest house we've seen so far. Me, I wasn't really feeling it, because 1) I don't like houses on slopes, 2) It has a flat garage roof, which is just totally idiotic in MN because you will spend your whole winter clearing snow off the roof, 3) I'm not too fond of the city of Maplewood, which is not as good as Roseville. So, no go.

We looked at two short sales, which were extremely disappointing. Houses were in very poor shape, and also the realtor said its a long and frustrating process to purchase a short sale because it depends on bank approval which could take months.

Got a call from the mortgage broker today we said we are qualified to purchase up to $200k or even $220k. But then Troy and I decided that we'll still stick with our lower budget of about $150k so we can have more extra money to have fun and future kids AND most importantly so we don't get foreclosed. Looking at several of the foreclosed houses really scared the heck out of us - what a horrible horrible thing to have to go through!

House hunting is fun. :))