I've been ridiculously busy lately.  Like... way more busy than normal.  Why, you ask?  Because we're apparently buying a house!

Sarah and I had this reasonably well thought out plan regarding home ownership.  As it stands right now, Sarah's parents own our house, and we rent it from them.  A few months ago, we decided that we'd buy the house from them, since a mortgage on a house you live in is significantly cheaper than a mortgage on a rental property, and we thought we'd be eligible for the $8000 federal first time home-buyer tax credit.  A few weeks ago, however, we were looking at the paperwork, and determined that we wouldn't be able to get the tax credit, as properties purchased from close relatives are not permitted.

We did, however, get prequalified for a mortgage which had a very low interest rate.  We also noticed in our research that housing prices in the Capital District really haven't recovered from the downturn several years ago.  So this got us looking into the possibility of buying another, nicer home in a nicer area.  We'd planned to do this at some point anyway, but that was more of a 5 - 7 year plan.

After looking at a few houses, we decided to make an offer on one.  Unfortunately, on the day we'd set up to meet with the real estate agent to actually make the offer, we got a call saying that someone else had put in a cash offer with no contingencies the day before, which the owners accepted.  That was annoying, to say the least.  But we ended up putting in an offer on another house, which was accepted after a counter-offer.  So now we're in the fun process of finalizing mortgage stuff, inspections, appraisals, talking to movers, and all of that.  We're probably going to be moving in about a month.

So the next month will be ridiculous...  And then we'll have a new house.  Yay?