Washington Mutual finally called me back today, after I was continuously pestering them. Well, it appears that I got approved for the loan… of course, now the issue becomes less “Can I buy the place?” and more “Should I buy the place?” We still haven’t found a third roommate, although desslok may possibly be interested (depending on how his situation plays out), but not for at least two months.
The real question it all boils down to is “can I afford to live without that extra $600/mo?” It would be tight. No more amazon.com packages of bunches of DVDs… No more buying video games that I don’t finish… No more buying every comic that looks interesting every week. I draw the line at lunches though. I refuse to take my lunch to work. That $5 * 20 days stays right there in the budget, thank you very much. Of course, even with a second roommate, there would still be less money flowing… of course, I could always tweak down my 401k temporarily or blow some stock options at less than optimal prices. The fact that next month is my last car payment helps things tremendously.
Another trick to this whole equation is exactly how much I would be paying for the house. Because there won’t be a selling agent, I can possibly talk down my landlord’s asking price. It wouldn’t amount to much in the monthly payment, but every little bit helps.
Once again, that listing is at http://www.craigslist.org/sby/roo/10600507.html. Holy crap, there’s a lot of listings on craigslist right now. This is so depressing.
On a completely unrelated note, I got DDRMAX2 in the mail today. I have an excuse to start DDRing again. Yay.
I say do it. If sacrifices must be made, so be it. You never really lose money in real estate in the long run. But yeah, a third roommate would help a lot. Good luck!
I say do it. The interest rates are pretty low right now (in general), and as ken said, you never really lose money in real estate.