OK, we've hopefully gotten past all the mortgage issues. They tried to drop a $1400 addition to our scheduled closing costs, but since I did some research and found this to be an error that shouldn't have been made in the first place, the bank agreed to eat the entire amount out of their fees. It actually lowers our monthly mortgage payments slightly. Hooray!

Closing is on July 21, and we can start moving our stuff in immediately afterwards.

The worst thing is that the weather is predicting temps in the 90s with a chance of thunderstorms. The temps are to be expected for late July, but the chance of precipitation really stinks. 

Good news from the house-hunting front, so far.

We found a house, a split level, 3-bedroom, 1.5 bath in a good area of town. It took us all of about 45 minutes of negotiating to settle on a price, which was almost $5000 less than the sale price, and $13000 less than the original asking price.

We're currently waiting on the appraisal to satisfy the bank, and the inspections will be done Wednesday.

For anyone that actually reads this, I apologize for not having made any entries in a while.

I've been otherwise occupied as my wife Michelle and I have been house hunting for our first home. As neither of us has much idea about the process, we've been getting a crash course from friends and parents and realtors and loan officers. It is occasionally a headache.

But we aren't making irrational decisions. We've figured out how much we can spend without stretching the household budget too thin to account for unplanned/emergency expenses. We're learning how to use the local Property Valuation Assessor's website to decide how overpriced some of these houses are for their neighborhoods, and we're praying that God lead us to the house He has intended for us.

But the mortgage process is purely a work of Satan. You'd think that the interest rate you get charged would be sufficient for the bank to get its money, but no, they've got plans to bleed you for thousands of dollars more in other fees. For the sake of comparison, I wonder how it would work if you got your loan on the black market, or just somebody with cash on hand that was satisfied collecting the interest associated with such a loan, with the deed as collateral.

Anyway, we're taking the next week off from work to really hunt for a house. Hopefully, I'll have good news by then.