Exciting weekend looking for houses in Providence, RI and the surrounding hamlets. My initial impression is very positive. This will be a fine place to live, the community is certainly thriving. My second impression is that, for the money, we can get a house about equal in size to the one we currently own. To everyone who warned of massive sticker shock on the East Coast: you were wrong. The difference is that what is available are older equal sized houses on smaller lots, with less amenities. Air conditioning is a rare thing, heat comes from heating oil (ick), etc.
We narrowed to two houses, one in Cranston and one in West Providence. We’ve made an offer on the one in Providence, based mostly on the fact that the neighborhood looks like a good investment. The house will require a little work, but I feel emotionally prepared to dive into some serious home hacking now that I’ve got three years of experience sort of messing around at the fringes.
Then, of course, we got to talk to the Mortgage lady. That was about as close as I like to come to “no fun at all.” So many variables…so many technical terms flying around. Looks like it costs about $5,000 to get a mortgage. Wheeee. Do you want to buy down the rate? What about ARM, API, NPACI, … We’ll be talking to other options, but this one seemed competent enough that I doubt we’ll find vast differences. I hate this stuff.
In other news, Newport is very cool. We did the cliff walk, ogled the mansions, and gorged ourselves on seafood. Overall, a deeply satisfying weekend. Let’s hope that the owner accepts our offer.
Anyone want to hire a programmer? I’m clever and useful!