The Loan Officer

(sounds like the name of a crappy action movie--*dun dun DUN*!!)

Last week I had the opportunity to talk to the loan officer that was recommended to me by my parents. She seems to have a very good personality for this sort of thing--I'm the type of person with phone anxiety, but she was easy to talk to and definitely put me at ease.

She confirmed one of my worries...however it might also be a blessing in disguise. 

Issue: Mr. Cap is a contractor. And because he's only been one since May (and had a career change from his previous job), we can't use him as one of the borrowers. On the negative side...we can't use him as one of the borrowers. So it's all up to me to do this thing (yikes!).

And the plus side...we can't use him as one of the borrowers. Which bring the loan they're willing to give us down quite a bit. So I'm *hoping* that we can avoid going into mortgage-debt because his income isn't being counted into what we can actually afford. 

So it's kind of actually a good thing. I don't want to get carried away and buy a house that's more than we can reasonably afford. Also, Mr. Cap and I are only planning to stay in this home for 5 or so years: we'd like this to be a "starter home", so to say. And if we eventually need more room/want a better location, I'm hoping that we can have saved up enough in order to do that. 

In the end, I'm disappointed that Mr. Cap isn't going to be a part of this process as much as I'd like him to be. On the plus side, this should help us avoid getting in over our head with house-debt.

I'm a strong believer in all things happening for a reason. So I'll face this minor set back and keep moving forward until the next issue pops up. And then I'll deal with that, too! 

Another issue that the loan officer brought up was that she felt it was more difficult to secure funding for a condo as opposed to a house. We're planning on using one of those "First Time Home Buyer"'s loans, so maybe that lends to the problem? In any case, this is something that we'll need to think of in more detail. We recently found a brand-new condo complex that falls into our price-range (and Mr. Cap definitely likes the idea of someone else mowing the lawn). It's pretty appealing to think of moving into a new building, since we wouldn't have to worry about much in the way of maintenance for a few years. I'm thinking I'll need to find more details out about the loan process in regards to condos. I don't want to make a bad choice...especially since Mr. Cap isn't going to be involved with the "borrowing" part of the loan anymore. I really hope he doesn't completely check out of looking for a home now and leave it all to me.