From time to time I'll sign onto craigslist.com and search for houses in a price range that I *feel* like I should be able to afford. I want a house SOOOO bad. I want to paint walls. I want to have a dog. I want a yard for my (someday) kids to play in. And I find sooo many that I instantly fall in love with by their photos. And they are so cheap these days! The prices are fantastic!
Problem is, even though they are cheap, I still can't afford them. I work in social work. It does NOT pay well. I love my job, I'm not complaining about that, but I pretty much have to come to terms with the fact that I am never going to be wealthy doing what I'm doing and it's going to take a LOT of finagling to get a house on my income!
Jacob is currently making a really good hourly wage at his job, but he only works part time... with no real chance of extra hours which means, at this point in our lives, we are making ends meet and that's about it (not to mention trying to figure out how to pay for a wedding). He's currently looking for a new job... it would be awesome if he found something that he loved that was full time for a decent wage, but the job market still kind of sucks. (Though, he did have an interview yesterday for a FANTASTIC job.... so keep your fingers crossed for us!)
We need to sign a new lease for our apartment next month... I think we're going to sign for a year and make it a *goal* to both have decent incomes and start house hunt toward the end of that year, but I can't help but think that we still won't be able to afford anything since I'm sure the market is going to have to turn around at some point... bah.
I hate being poor sometimes.
I feel you! I do that almost every day, I look in the range that we've been pre-approved for, if we can save up a down payment. Well saving for a wedding doesn't allow us to save up $15,000 for a house...
ReplyDeleteIt's super frustrating, dreaming about houses that you can decorate to your style. Dreaming about actually raising kids where you live. It frustrates me every day!
Lucky for you house prices are good, hopefully they'll stay there until you're ready to buy a house! A little bittersweet was that we suffered nothing from the recession, we're actually busier than we have been in decades in Saskatchewan. Why is this bad? House prices SUCK!
I started an online house hunt recently and I always seem to get carried away looking at things there is no way we can afford. Its a nice little fantasy while it lasts though.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel your pain. We're in a different situation in that my fiance bought his(now our) condo several years ago at the height of the market and since then it's gone way down in value so we can't afford to sell it without taking a loss. And we can't afford to buy a new place without selling the current place. So we're basically stuck. It stinks.
ReplyDeleteditto
ReplyDeletefingers crossed that he gets the job