158 Days

On February 21st myself, Kate and my sister Anne looked at three apartments in Forest Hills (it was supposed to be 4 but one of the residents at the fourth building threatened to murder the agent who was showing us the building.) After looking at the apartments and emotionally recovering from the death threat, we headed up to Fordham for a basketball game. On our way to dinner on Arthur Ave. the agent called us to inform us that there was another apartment that was just listed and suggested we take a look at it. Although it was a little out of our price range, we figured there was no harm in looking.

Later that week, I looked at the apartment and fell in love. Great sized rooms, beautiful building and an ideal location near Austin Street. Now about that price......

One of the many beautiful things about my relationship with Kate is the flexibility that we have in many situations (no, I'm not being filthy thank you very much) However, one of the areas where we didn't necessarily meet eye to eye was the financials of our home buying. I was lucky to have someone who was looking out for the two of us and didn't want to drive us into foreclosure; Kate was lucky because this apartment totally kicked ass and she would love to live there once I convinced her. And thus it became my mission: make the apartment much more then just a price tag and convince her that this is the home where we were meant to start our new life together.

We scheduled another viewing, checked it out, and no sooner than the door was closed on the car ride home, did Kate tell me she loved it; but could we afford it? Well sure enough, your humble narrator became "Mr. Excel" and started creating spreadsheets left and right.....20% down + maintenance + mortgage= this per month etc etc etc. We could eat Raman for dinner right? Food comes and goes, a beautiful apartment is forever (or until we buy house.)

We placed our bid on March 14th and on March 17th, after a little back and forth, our offer was accepted. What an omen right???? Two Micks have their offer accepted on St. Patrick's Day. This should be a piece of cake! Unfortunately it didn't quite work that way. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months for this process to unfold.

I could spend this blog venting about Chase and the plague of locusts that I wish on them but I'm not going to do that. Why? Because I'm thrilled. Today Kate and I closed on our apartment and are now proud owners of Apartment 5L. So what that it took us 158 days.....we did it, it's ours. My dad (who we could not have done this without) took us for a pint of Guinness after the closing and then Katie and I headed over to the new place. When we got into the car, we turned to each other with the same look that said the same thing....."Holy shit...we did it."

Now let's get married.