Wisdom Teeth Surgery - as an adult.

So I got my wisdom teeth out on Friday…I know, I know, I’m a bit late to the party, at the age of 22, but my dentist didn’t recommend getting them out in high school because they were still underdeveloped…and in college I was too busy/broke/dumb to care about getting them out.

Still, when I got an infection in one of them a few months ago, I realized that they needed to go, especially since they get increasingly difficult to remove as you get older.

My appointment was scheduled for 9:45 on Friday, and I was freaking out about the idea of being tied to my couch for the entire weekend. I am one of the most active, crazy, hyper people in the world, and sitting for 3 days was not something I was looking forward to. So, of course, it seemed like a good idea to get up at 6am, go to the gym and work out super hard, and then have a fantastic (and enormous) breakfast of bacon, waffles, and orange slices to prepare for days of cabbage soup and mashed potatoes.

“Wait,” you say, having had your own wisdom teeth removed. “You can’t eat before surgery!”

That’s…true. If you get anesthetic. And I was opting NOT to get anesthetic.

No, that doesn’t mean I just went and let people rip teeth out of my mouth without any painkillers. Instead of getting sedated (aka put to sleep) I asked for a local anesthetic. The dentist gave me 2-3 shots of novocaine in each of my gums, which hurt a little – but not too bad. It was basically a prick and some uncomfortable pressure. That created a lot of numbness in my lips, tongue, and jaw, which allowed the dentist to then remove my wisdom teeth without me feeling any pain. However, I could hear the crunching bone and feel a lot of pressure and grinding as they chunked out the impacted teeth.

Why did I do this? Multiple reasons…most of which some young adults may relate to:

1. It cost $500 less to get local anesthetic as opposed to sedation. Since I was paying for the procedure and don’t have dental insurance, this was a big deal.
2. I could eat/work out/etc beforehand. This was a nice bonus – I seriously enjoyed my breakfast more than I’ve enjoyed any food since the surgery (I’M SO SICK OF SOUP).
3. I wasn’t groggy afterwards. This was a big deal because…I live alone. I cant afford to be completely out of it for hours – I needed to go to Meijer and get my antibiotic prescription, get ice packs into the freezer and prepare homemade ice packs to start icing my mouth, and get myself situated on the couch. Without anesthetic, you’re good to drive! With anesthetic…well, you’re supposed to have somebody stay with you for at least 12 hours.
4. I get freaked out by the idea of being put to sleep. This is a personal thing, but the whole idea skeeves me out really bad

Honestly? The procedure wasn’t that bad. I had my headphones on, and they gave me a breathing tube with a minor dose of laughing gas to help me stay calm (this was free). It unpleasant, of course, but it wasn’t painful or anything like that. I basically just closed my eyes and zoned out, except to tilt my head or open my mouth wider or whatever requests they had for me at different points in the procedure. And then, when I was done (and had massive chipmunk cheeks), I was able to enjoy a solid five hours of being numb and painfree…and completely mentally alert and fine.

I spent most of the day hanging with my boyfriend, watching TV, and icing my face (to reduce later swelling), and I’m happy to report that I really didn’t have much pain. My jaw was a little sore the first night, and I took an extra strength ibuprofen before I went to sleep to ensure that it didn’t’ get worse and wake me up during the night…and that’s the only pain medication I took the entire time! I don’t know if it just went stupid well, or if being awake was helpful, or some combination of the two, but I’m not complaining.

However, it still sucked. And I realized something…

When you’re sick or hurt or something…living alone really sucks.

I had to clean up after myself, get myself everything I needed, and entertain myself for an entire weekend. Sure, I wasn’t in much pain…but I still didn’t exactly feel great. So kiddies, here’s the top five things you need to do to prepare for Adulting a surgery:

1. Prep food ahead of time. I made a pot of cabbage soup before the surgery and I was SO GLAD I did.
2. Tell friends/family to visit you. My boyfriend brought me lentil soup on the second day, and this was good because by that time I didn’t want ANY MORE cabbage soup. I was also super cranky, but thankfully he rolled with it.
3. Clean your house ahead of time. You’re not doing anything while you’re laid up.
4. Think about your situation before getting sedated. I get it, sometimes you can’t help it, you have to anesthesia. But if you can avoid it, and you live alone….don’t do it. Things would’ve been so much worse if I had been woozy, unable to drive, and generally incompetent for the first day.
5. Set phone alarms to make sure you follow the doctor’s instructions. Your mom isn’t there to remind you to ice your face, take your antibiotics, or drink plenty of fluids. You have to do it.
6. *BONUS* Suck it up and do it. It sucks, but then it’s over. I’m reintroducing bread into my diet today, and a large part of my swelling is gone. By the weekend, things should be back to normal. And you’re an adult now, you can handle it!

House Closing

Well, I did it. As of 4pm yesterday afternoon, I became a real, live, actual HOMEOWNER. I own a house. I’m not a renter, I’m an owner.

This is surreal.

So yes, I closed on my house yesterday. It was actually really easy – I left work a little early to go to the title company, where I arrived exactly five minutes before the closing appointment (3:30). The title place was located in this tucked away business complex that I had never noticed before, even though it was on a road I had driven and walked down a million times growing up. I’d had a knot in my gut most of the day, but it was a small knot, and at least 80% excitement and only 20% fear. That ratio tipped a little closer to 50:50 as I walked in the door of the title company. I had never been to a title company before – what should I even expect?

When I entered the door, a long hallway with doors on either side stretched out in front of me. A man – probably in his early 30s – was leaving the hallway and heading toward what appeared to be a bathroom. I smiled automatically at him, and he smiled back. He didn’t look like he worked there; he must have been here for a closing. My closing? To my left was a small waiting room. Where the heck do I go? Turning to the right, I saw the receptionist’s desk, hidden by the foyer. A smiling lady noticed me before I could say anything, and asked if I was here for the Sunset house. It took me a minute to respond. House? I don’t own a house. Oh, wait, yes I do. Or I will. Whoa. “Yes,” I said, more calmly than I felt.

“The first room on your right – the Lake Room.” Dudeeee they name their rooms like a fancy motel or conference center or something.

“Thank you,” I said. I turned into the Lake Room to see a large table dominating the small space. A blonde woman who appeared to be extremely pregnant was seated one side of the table, with the selling agent – who I had met at the open house – seated at the far end, and a middle-aged woman in dress clothes at the near end. “Where should I sit?” I asked, suddenly cognizant of how young I must look with my ragged backpack strung over one shoulder and my admittedly younger-than-my-age-looking features.

“Right over there,” the woman in dress clothes said, pointing to the opposite side of the table from the pregnant woman.

“Nice to see you again,” the selling agent said, standing to shake my hand.

“You too.” I awkwardly sat down, then realized I still had my bulky coat on and the room was rather warm. I stood up again to take my coat off and almost tripped over my backpack, like a total idiot. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and sat down again, hopefully with some degree of poise.

“Will your agent be joining us?” the middle-aged woman asked. She must be from the title company.

“…I think so. Yes.” I hadn’t confirmed with my realtor, but I was pretty sure he’d show up. I noticed the selling agent pouring himself coffee from a karafe in the center of the table and I perked up suddenly. “That’s coffee?” I asked.

“Yeah. Oh, sorry, I should’ve offered you some. Cream and sugar?”

“No thanks, I like it black. And no worries, haha. Caffeine would be good though.” I poured myself a cup and held it tightly, instantly calmer.

Just then, the man I had seen going to the bathroom came into the room. He grinned at me. “So you’re the buyer? I’m Bill.” He extended his hand. I shook it, and introduced myself. His wife – the pregnant lady – introduced herself as well, and suddenly everything felt less nerve-wracking.

The title agent collected the drivers licenses of myself and the sellers and briskly started rifling through a thick stack of papers. “There’s a request for 60 days occupancy – do you know when you will be moving out?” she asked the sellers.

“No,” Bill answered. “Not yet. We haven’t closed on our other house yet.”

“Where are you guys moving?” I asked curiously as the title lady started writing furiously.

“We’re moving out to the South Lyon. We bought a big farmhouse – 30,000 square feet – on a few acres.”

“Oh, wow, that’s awesome!” I said. Oh my God, can I BE these people?

“Yeah,” the wife – Anne – answered. “But we’re a little sad to leave. We had a lot of really good memories in our house, but we needed the extra space. Once you have kids…”

“Besides,” Bill added, “we’re from that area originally. This was our first house; we couldn’t afford out there. And it’s been a great house. We love the neighbor behind us!”

I laughed – the joke was that the house backs up to a school park, so there was no neighbor behind them. “I know! That’s fantastic! I was very excited when I saw that.”

“That’s what sold you, huh?”

“Yeah, kind of.” I grinned.

“Yeah, it’s hard to find that in Livonia.”

“It really is!”

“Well, all the neighbors are fantastic,” Anne broke in. “Two of them are cops.”

“Oh, cool!” I exclaimed. I like cops.

Bill grinned. “Yeah, and you know the side of the house with the privacy fence? The previous owners were really annoying, but the people who live there now are great – they’re really quiet. They do have a dog, but they’re super nice. And then both people next to you on the open side of the yard are cops. The first house, Ron and Sarah, he’s a Belleville cop and they have a daughter – 7 months old. Then then next to him, is David; he’s a Canton cop. And the people across the street are great too.”

“Everyone’s great,” Anne added. “We’re going to miss them.”

“Yeah, we will,” Bill said. “The cops moved in at the same time we did and we’re all similar age – they’re in their early 30s – so we hung out together and stuff. They’re wonderful people, plus they add some extra safety to the neighborhood. Good mechanics too, if you ever need a jump or anything like that, they’d be happy to help you out.”

As all of this conversation was going on, my realtor had arrived and the title lady was passing around papers for us to sign. They had already sent out the documents we’d be signing via email, so I had already read through everything, making the signing process merely a formality.

Some more chitchat was exchanged, as the papers flew. The title lady explained how occupancy rent would be determined, water and taxes would be pro-rated, and a certain portion of the money would held in escrow. The sellers talked a little bit about their four-year-old daughter, and I learned that my realtor has five daughters between the ages of 6-15.

Suddenly, maybe fifteen minutes later, we were done. The title lady went to make copies of everything, gave us back our driver’s licenses, and told us that we needed to go to city hall to file our tax papers with the assessor’s office. Then she handed the seller’s a check for $150,000.

“Whoa,” Bill said. “This is a lot of money.”

“Well, I guess we’re officially homeless,” Anne said disbelievingly.

The selling agent laughed. “That’s the difference between men and women right there – the guy thinks about what he can do with the money and the woman thinks about how she’s losing her home!” Everyone laughed. Suddenly, we were done. I grabbed my papers, a nice congratulations packet from my realtor – which contained a notepad, magnet, journal, pen, and stack of new address labels – and walked out to my car.

In a state of disbelief, I drove to City Hall and walked in. Once again, I was faced with not knowing where the heck to go, but some worker pointed me in the direction of the assessor’s office, and within minutes my papers were stamped and I was officially responsible for a piece of property.

I ran into Bill and Anne again on my way out of City Hall, and laughed at having beat them there. Outside of the title company and the watchful eyes of professionals, we chatted a bit more. Bill offered to leave some of the rugs in the basement if I wanted them, and I gave him my cell phone number and said that if there was anything they wanted to a) leave or b) sell, to text me and I’d let them know if I wanted it. They both said how glad they were that a young person was getting it, and said that they hoped the house would be a great of a home to me as it was to them. I agreed that it seemed like a great starter home, and explained that the plan was to live there for 5-10 years until I had some kids – kind of them like they did.

Then I waved goodbye, thanked them for everything, and got in my car. I called my mom and my boyfriend to tell them that everything went okay, and then it was over, only 45 minutes after I had shown up at the title company. I was a homeowner.

In the evening, after I had worked out and eaten dinner, I packed my first box. The work has begun – and I can’t WAIT to move in!

My only tips from this experience?

1) Don't be afraid to ask the sellers questions - they should be happy to tell you all about the house and neighborhood, and the realtors can explain all the money things.

2) Read all your papers ahead of time - the actually signing process goes super fast.

3) Don't be nervous - it's not bad at all!

Quick note: My closing would have been 20-30 minutes longer if I had used a mortgage company instead of a private loan. You're supposed to allow about an hour.

I Organized My Dresser

Happy MLK Day (well, happy day-after-MLK-Day)! I hope lots of you enjoyed a day off…I had to work, but then again, I’m an hourly employee, so that’s not a bad thing (yes, an office with hourly employees. My job sucks. But I get paid, so oh well).

Last weekend, I went on an organize-my-dresser-drawers kick. I’ve been getting really excited about getting a house, and for some reason I feel a lot more driven to keep my future house neat, clean, and organized than my apartment. After all, I’m used to moving every year (or twice a year in college), so although I’ve kept things relatively clean, I haven’t worried about keep things super organized.

Well, that all is going to change when I move into my house, and I decided to start getting ideas now. This is partially because waiting is hard, and also because moving will probably be fairly overwhelming (it usually is), so I’d like to get as much done ahead of time as I can.

 Now, I generally fold things haphazardly and toss them in a drawer with somewhat similar items, but I’ve decided that should probably stop if I’m going to be a motherfranking adult homeowner. I don’t like digging through heaps of semi-folded clothes, nor do I like the veritable junk drawer in my night table that seems to collect all of the odds and ends that don’t have a place when I initially move…and then never get removed.

My mom’s dresser drawers, conversely, always looked like they belonged in a Better Homes and Gardens catalog. And although I'll never be as good at cleaning and organizing as my mother, I'd like my drawers to at least be passable.

A common theme on the internet is the use of bins and baskets to organize stuff. I hope to implement some of these ideas in my new home, but bins and baskets cost money, and drawer organizers seem weirdly expensive. And, as we already established, my budget is, um, a bit strict. I saw that some people make these things out of cardboard boxes (i.e. cereal boxes) covered in wrapping paper, which I thought was a great idea. However, I’m not crafty and I didn’t want to spend ANY dollars on this project…so I just cut up an old (and large) tea box and made dividers for my socks & underwear drawer. And oh my gosh, it worked incredibly well! I also changed how I fold my socks (I actually folded them instead of balling them up) and arranged my bras in a way that WOULDN’T damage them…and a previously overflowing mess is now pretty!

I also cut up an old electronics box to organize my night table drawer, and although it’s not quite as pretty, it’s at least somewhat organized. Whoo!

Making the drawer dividers took about 10 minutes, and refolding all my clothes and stuff only took about an hour…and that was a distracted hour since I was simultaneously watching football. Of course, I’ll have to give it a few weeks to see if this organization actually LASTS…but I think it will; it should be fairly easy to maintain.

Although I was out of cardboard, I did re-do my workout clothes & tank top drawer and my jeans and dress pants drawers. It freed up a lot of space (believe it or not, all of these drawers were stuffed and overflowing before I did this), and made it so that I can actually SEE everything I own. I took folding tips from Melissa Maker, a cleaning guru on Youtube (search cleanmyspace to find her videos).

And the beauty of it all? When I move, I’ll move each drawer individually, without removing any of the contents…and the drawer dividers should keep everything arranged properly in transit. So organizing my dresser should just be one less thing to do when I actually get my house!

PS. My closing is on Thursday, so expect a Housing Part 4 post on Friday as I describe the process!

House Buying Part 3 - Parental Advice

After determining that this house thing might actually be possible, and obtaining a general understanding of how houses work, my next step was to talk to the people who I assume know everything…my parents.

My (retired) parents live about an hour away in a lovely farmhouse on a huge field. Basically, they live in the place and house that I wish I could live in, but can’t because there aren’t many jobs in the country. Gathering my financial information and the sum of my research, I headed out to their home for dinner – and a little consultation. After a delicious meal of pot roast, potatoes, green beans, and salad (why do moms always make way too much food when people come over for dinner?), I pulled out my papers and brought up the idea.

The Conversation:

I started by telling them that I wasn’t sure if this was something I was ready to do, but I wanted their input on the financial situation, as well as the practical aspects of owning versus renting.

My dad highlighted the difference as being a lifestyle choice. He told me that in terms of cost, the two things are similar – a house involves repairs and maintenance, all of which costs money. It’s impossible to really predict the cost…you could pay very little or quite a bit, depending on chance, but overall it averages out. The difference, according to my dad, is that owning a house makes you responsible for upkeep. You have to maintain the lawn, the structure, and the integrity of the building. You can be creative and flexible with your furnishings, but are responsible for their upkeep. If you don’t want a lot of work, he said, don’t buy a house. Then again, if you enjoy the feeling of ownership and the pride of a job well done…a house is for you.

I liked this advice. I genuinely enjoy a lot of yard-tasks (I actually miss shoveling snow!), and I like fixing things myself. I’m the person who wants to own the DVD instead of streaming it, own the book instead of borrowing it, and fix the leak in my room myself without waiting for anybody.

They also emphasized the importance of re-sale. Location, they said, was critical – I would want a neighborhood with long-term value, not too close to the city (Detroit – not a good place), and not on top of the freeway or a main road. They also stressed the important of getting a three bedroom house, and avoiding trilevels and bilevels for the purpose of selling the house later.

The Finances: My parents were more hesitant about the financial side of things. They told me that I wasn’t really any worse off than they were when they bought their first house…but that age had taught them caution. My mom said she really couldn’t advise me not to try to buy property now – since I wouldn’t exactly be saving very much after all of my apartment costs (particularly with rent increasing by at least $100/mo when my lease is up) – but she’d recommend a larger down payment and more emergency money if at all possible. But if that wasn’t possible…well, she figured it was a toss up, but I could probably manage it if I really wanted to (and really watched my spending for a while).

My Thoughts: I chewed on this information for about a week, and couldn’t really make up my mind what to do. I started tossing around the idea of trying to find a roommate, but I didn’t really want that…I either want to live alone or with a significant other in a permanent partnership (even scarier than buying a house!)…I’m done with roommates. Unless they’re of the feline variety. Then I tossed around the idea of getting a second job, but I didn’t want that either. Then I spent some time on Zillow and thought that if I bought a house in a less-than-ideal location (closer to Detroit but still in safe neighborhood), I could definitely afford it…but resale would be harder.

Magical Phone Call:

I was walking to the grocery store after work on a Thursday, enjoying the fall sunshine in the lull before the darkness of winter begin, intending to pick up some apples. I was cheerfully oblivious to all thoughts of houses, apartments, rent, mortgages, or anything else, instead paying attention to the red leaves, warm sun, and great music playing through my headphones…and then my phone rang.

“Hello?” I said, pausing the music and lifting the phone to my ear without checking the caller ID.

“Hey, Jess?” my mom asked. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure. I’m just out taking a walk.”

“Your dad and I were talking, and you know your sister is selling her house, right?”

“...yes…”

“Well, what you may not know is that we actually loaned her the money to buy that house. It was a good investment for us, because we barely make anything on our retirement investments with the interest rate being what it is. We basically sold it to her on a land contract, and she’s been paying us every month instead of the mortgage company. Since she’s selling her house, we will be getting all of our money back and were wondering if you’d be interested in a similar arrangement.”

“…are you serious?” I struggled to process this.

“Yes. We could lend you a maximum of $200,000 – preferably more like $180,000 – and the house would be in your name. You would have to show proof of homeowners insurance and tax payments, and would pay us the current market interest rate – I think it’s around 4% right now – for five years. Then we would update the interest rate to whatever it is in 2022. The advantage is that if something disastrous happens, you can skip a payment if you absolutely have to, and we’ll make a lot more interest on our money than we would otherwise. 4% is also probably less interest than you would pay on a loan, since you’re young and don’t have much credit yet. We’ve actually done this for two of your siblings now. What do you think?”

“Well…that sounds awesome. I don’t know though, are you sure you don’t need that money?” I have something of an independent streak and wasn’t sure I liked the idea of help.

“It would help us, actually. We’d be getting your payments every month on top of the social security, so it’d be easier to budget. Plus, like I said, we’ll make more money on it in the long run.”

“It sounds great,” I said. “I’ve been thinking, and I definitely want to buy instead of rent; I just hadn’t ironed out exactly how or when that could happen.”

And with that, I established that I would be obtaining a personal loan (see the part 2 post) at 4% interest with an arm of five years. The process had begun!

House Buying Part 2 - How To Pay For It

Yesterday, I  left you with a tale of me getting pissed off at my apartment and consequently looking into the finances of buying a house. Today, I bring to you some of the practical considerations for how you’re going to afford the regular payments for your house.

How Your Payments Work:

1. Down Payment: You pay this up front when you buy the house. It’s recommended to pay 20% of the price of the house as a the down payment. This is a lot of money. You can pay as low as 10% on a regular loan. On an FHA loan (more later) you can pay as little as 3%. Keep in mind that the smaller the down payment, the more you will ultimately pay in interest.
2. Mortgage Payment: You pay a set amount of money to the person/institution that lends you money (usually the bank) every month.
1. Interest: You are charged interest on your money, which is pre-factored into your payments (your payments per month will not change). The interest is a set percent of the amount that you owe, so as you pay off your loan the dollars of interest added each month decreases. If you pay more than your set mortgage payment, you may pay off your home quicker than expected because you’ll be charged less money in interest overall.
2. Extra Fees: If you have a small down payment/are low-income you can get an FHA loan. This means that you pay something called PPI. I don’t know exactly what this is, but it’s factored into your monthly mortgage payment. It’s basically a way to buy a house if you don’t have a lot of cash, but you pay for the ability eventually through these fees!
3. Taxes: You pay property taxes every summer and winter. You can look up your state’s specific rules regarding these, but generally they’re just lump sums of money you pay based on how much the house is worth. Your taxes include your city services, like trash pick-up, leaf pick-up, snow removal, etc. Every city has different city services, so research what’s offered in the location of the house you are buying.
4. Homeowner’s Insurance: You are required to get homeowners insurance before signing the papers to buy the house (just like you’re required to get auto insurance when you drive a car). You can pay this in lump, yearly fees or as monthly payments. You get it from the same people you get auto insurance from (i.e. progressive, state farm, allstate, etc). I’ll do a separate post about this.
5. Utilities: As with most apartments, you pay your utilities to the utility companies. Unlike with apartments, none of these are included in your monthly ‘rent’. You will need electric, gas (heat), water/sewer, internet, and tv (optional). All of the bills are monthly except for the water bill, which you pay every three months for some reason.
1. If you live in a city, you’ll be charged a city rate for water/sewer based on how much water you use. If you live somewhere where there’s a well & septic tank, you’re charged a set rate for access to water (much cheaper!) but will have to pay butt ton of money to clean out your crap-filled septic tank when it gets full.

Types of Mortgages: 

You have to finance you house somehow so most people get a loan from a bank. It's just like a student loan or a car loan, but for some reason it's called a mortgage. I don't know why. Here are some common types:

1. 30 year mortgage: This is the standard mortgage and is probably hard to get if you’re a young person without much of a down payment. However, it’s nice because the interest you pay on your money is constant (unless you voluntarily re-finance). So if you pay 5% interest, that is what you pay no matter what the current interest rate becomes. You also have 30 years to pay off the loan and your monthly payments are calculated accordingly
2. 15 year/20 year/etc mortgage: Same as above but for a different time frame.
3. Arm Mortgage: This is a mortgage that is often offered as a lower monthly payment, but will re-adjust your interest rate after a fixed term (usually 5 or 10 years). Often, this spikes your payments at that point since markets tend to improve over time (but it can help you if the market drops). FHA loans often have arms (who invented these names, seriously?)

Other Forms of Financing:

1. Land Contract: Normally, the bank pays the seller in full, then you pay the bank back slowly. You can cut the bank out of the picture and pay the seller directly over time. This allows the seller to make more money (because you pay them interest) but is really hard to get because most people need the cash from the sale right away.
2. Private loan: This works like a land contract, except that you pay back the private lender instead of the seller, and they pay the seller in cash. Cash sales are the highest valued in real estate and can speed up the buying process. People (usually relatives) might want to loan you the money privately because a lot of times, the interest that you earn on a loan is a lot higher than the interest that you earn on a moderate risk investment in a bank. However, for somebody to loan you money to buy a house, they need quite a bit of money sitting around!

A great resource is www.zillow.com – they give you an estimate of the mortgage payments on a house based on what percent you put down and what kind of mortgage you get. They also estimate taxes (paid twice a year).

As I discovered all of this information from the magical thing known as Google, I concluded that I could definitely afford payments (and taxes) on an FHA loan with 3% on any house under $180,000…but it would be tight because the down payment and my ongoing apartment lease.

The next step was to find out if it was worth it or not.

To be continued…

End of Hiatus - and House Buying - A Tale of Realization - Part 1

It’s been awhile…but I’ve been busy landing that full-time job, adjusting to my new schedule, and – wait for it – buying a house.

Yup.

So that’s actually kinda perfect, because this is supposed to be about building your first home, and I’ve learned that there is a pretty serious limit to what you can do in an apartment. Mostly because you’re not allowed to fix, customize, or update anything the way you want…which is annoying (don't worry. I'll talk more about apartment living in this blog house or not!).

Let’s start with this…are you ready to buy a house?

House Buying – A Tale of Realization - Part 1

It’s a scary concept. Owning a house ties you to a specific location for a long time. It involves maintenance, repairs, and a never-ending outflow of money to things like fixing the roof, paying all the bills, paying property taxes, obtaining insurance…HELP, I’M NOT READY TO ADULT. So why on earth did I decide to take this step at the tender age of 22?

The Scene: My friend’s apartment, watching a pre-season Lions game.

The Characters: Me, the guy hosting the gathering (let’s call him Peter), another friend (Lauren) who is sharing an apartment with someone and working her slow way through college, and a friend (Hester) who is still in college/living at home and looking at our full-time jobs, single apartments, and electric bills and saying ‘oh my god, adulting costs a lot of money’.

The Story:

“Ugh, sorry I’m late guys,” I greeted everyone, taking off my rain-soaked shoes at the door. “The ceiling in my apartment decided to start leaking, so I had to move all my stuff out of the way, set up towels and pots, and call maintenance. Oh, and apparently maintenance doesn’t consider a leak urgent, and won’t send somebody out until tomorrow morning. Isn’t the best time to fix a leak while it’s raining?”

“Ew, that sucks,” Lauren said. “Well, you’re not missing much – the Lions are playing like…well…the Lions.”

“You have a leak?” Peter asked in confusion. “How? Isn’t your apartment on the ground floor?”

“Yup,” I said. “But there’s only two stories and it’s at the seam where the wall meets the ceiling, so it’s probably a gutter problem or something with the balcony above me. The best part of that is that the water is running down the wall destroying the paint and drywall and there’s literally nothing I can do about it. That’s sad, because I could likely fix it myself.”

“Maintenance sucks,” Peter said. “My dishwasher was randomly leaking the other day, so maintenance came to fix it…and used MY TOWELS that I had sitting on the counter to clean up. So now my towels are all filthy and gross. Plus they tracked mud in everywhere.”

This was my first time seeing Peter’s apartment, so he was showing off the relatively spacious kitchen, Walmart bookshelf/entertainment center, and nice-looking laminate flooring…and complaining about how much a one-bedroom apartment cost. He had chosen a downtown area hoping to enjoy the nightlife, but was quickly discovering that his long commute to work (due to traffic, not distance), the lack of parking anywhere near his apartment, and the rules against grilling were not worth the walking-distance bars and clubs. My apartment, nestled on the outskirts of cozy suburb, was slightly cheaper and included more utilities, but was still ridiculously expensive.

We compared complaints, and started reminiscing to the days in college when we rented a house with a yard, and could barbecue and have as many houseguests (and their cars) as we wanted to. Of course, we both acknowledged that college rental houses are glorified pieces of broken crap.

“Gosh,” Peter said. “I wish I could afford to own a house. Then I could do whatever I wanted, I’d have a yard, and I wouldn’t have to move for a very long time.”

“That’d be awesome,” I agreed. “But if we think a one-bedroom apartment is expensive, how much more do you think a house would cost?”

“Well, let’s find out.” He opened his laptop and typed something into Google. “Hey, wait…this doesn’t seem that expensive.” He tilted the screen so that I could see, and I frowned, seeing Zillow estimates of $500-$800/mo depending on the area and newness of the house. Compared to my $945 and his $1100/mo, this seemed unbelievable.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lauren chimed in. “Houses has taxes.”

“And insurance,” I said.

“And RESPONSIBILITY,” Hester exclaimed. “Are you guys crazy?”

“And no utilities are included,” Peter added. “But I wonder…”

We excitedly started Googling and calculating…and realized that on a monthly basis, a small house would cost less than our apartments. The only catch seemed to be the down payment, which was recommended at 20%...and a bare minimum of 3% if we took an FHA loan (meaning that we get a cheap loan for little money up front, but pay an extra fee every month). 3% of a house is still a pretty big chunk of money.

“Well, that counts me out,” Peter said. “It’s all I can do afford my apartment, car payment, and student loans…and I’m putting a little in my 401K. I can’t save for a down payment! At least not quickly.”

I hesitated. I don’t have student loans (scholarships are awesome), but I also don’t make very much money. Then again, from working a gazillion hours a week while going to school and budgeting like a crazy person for the last four years, I did have that 3% in the bank…plus a little bit extra. Still, it seemed crazy. I couldn’t buy a house…I was too young, I didn’t make enough money, and although I had a full-time job it wasn’t exactly in the niche I wanted my career to be in…and I didn’t know the first thing about how to buy a house!

A week later, my rent was due and my ceiling still wasn’t fixed properly (they said it was hard to diagnose what was leaking when it wasn’t raining. Shocker). After staring crankily at the mess in my living room, I sat down with a cup of coffee to go over my finances and see if there was any way in hell I could afford to buy a house in the spring, when my lease was up.

To be continued…