I'm NOT Goin' 2 France!

Current mood: satisfied...no, really, I am!

I had a faculty meeting today and some errands to run, but I still got home time to talk to Andy, my Dallas realtor. He went yesterday to check out the condo I was interested in and he came back really impressed. There were several units available and he looked at all of them, then narrowed it down to the two best candidates. The one he liked best is also, coincidentally, the exact same one I looked at when I flew out there in August. So, I'm not going to be buying a property I've never seen, which is good news.

The next hurdle is the mortgage lender. Since I'm an out-of-state buyer, the lender had told me in August that I had to put down 5% downpayment. Now, keep in mind, lenders here in California were ready to do a 100% financing scenario with me, based on my good credit and job history. Financing only 95% was not in my budget. So, I reluctantly had to postpone my real estate search. Flash forward to now, and I am in much better financial shape (i.e., I have actually managed to save a few thousand for a down payment).

However, I still don't have enough money and therein lies the reason for the cancelling of my France trip. Waaaaaaah! But I wanna go to France AND buy a condo! *sigh* Alas, I just don't have the cash. Think... think... think... condo or France... condo or France. It would certainly be very devil-may-care and "romantic" to choose France but...I'm what you would call a romantic pragmatist and an idealistic realist. Buying this property will mean security for myself in the future. It will be a nice investment that I could turn into a rental property or I could move to Dallas and live in it this year or I could just hang on to it and live in it 25 years from now when I retire.

I have to tell myself that France will always be there, but an opportunity to buy prime real estate for a song will not.

So, I'm going CONDO!

BTW, I posted a snap of my friends Erika and Amber, as well as a primo shot of my darling spouse. Enjoy!