(soul.blue.print.): house hunting is highly stressful, pt 1

the canal pointe tampa house actually looked really nice in person as opposed to the photos. and it was cute. the masterbedroom made me think of male though and i was laughing about it as it had a half nude/topless? [subtle not dirty in any way] blonde woman painting above the dresser but with KISS memorabilia around it like a rocker dude and an acoustic guitar not far away from his dresser.

it is interesting to see what people have and their personality in these homes. they werent home but it had to be someone like our age or even younger who lived there and cos a lot of the extra rooms had boxes packed and taking up half the room, it was hard to tell.

the backyard and patio were also really cute. it looked like there was a cat due to kitty climber thing and cat food but didnt see it. also, there was a dog in a cage in the office room. felt really bad for it. i am very opposed to getting any house though that has an owner who doesn't make sure their home is DOG SMELL free. i don't really like dogs all that much mostly due to their messiness and smell [and i hate hyper animals that drool and jump all over you but jimmy's parents are dog lovers and cat haters and a lot of jimmy's friends are dog lovers too. i kind of have to restrain my thoughts. but not a huge fan of dogs. i agree with that scene in meet the parents where robert dinero is with ben stiller telling ben why cats do NOT sell out like dogs do and how they dont make u work for their affection. lol]

anyway i hate that smell dogs leave in a home if they live-in and so a few homes that were wreaking of dog smell, we were like "forget it! that is a turn off" LOL and it is a definite NO if i see a bunch of dogs or big dogs running around salivating which a few we did see just as i've depicted it. and these particular dog homes smelled horrible. i had to hold my breath.

as far as the fees, for this one home, jimmy says its way too high and he could never afford the payment + he is kind of in the dark about what is a normal fee or what is too high of a fee. i still think he will say its out of his league in being able to afford. i prefer a home that has fees cos it means it's taken care of while he has tried to stay away from homes with high fees or even wanted to go for ones with NO fees which i've tried to talk him out of. he may be realizing this now after seeing some real dumps w/o any HOA fee...i told him i think that would be a mistake. you want a nice family community where things are taken care of, there is a rec. center or pool or family oriented things included in the home esp if one day we start our own family and will be there a while.

i feel like an HOA fee makes the home or area more likely to be a nice area...i don't want a crime ridden downhill bad neighborhood. he thinks not having an HOA doesn't mean anything about how nice the community is or if there is a rec. center nearby that is included and all but I believe it means something and you don't get anything nice for nothing, nothing is for free LOL

btw jimmy says that the loan he qualified for which he sent out today to start the process, is a 150,000 FHA first time home owner loan and its where the sellers pay 3 percent cost of downpayment and 3 percent of closing cost. he was told this was the best loan to go for in terms of saving money on getting a first home. but again im really in the dark on this. i know very little about this process or what that means and really do not know if its a good route to take for a loan on a mortgage.

Jimmy's payments will be like 1200 a month with mortgage and he complains he will barely be able to afford this which i don't really get since he makes good salary and makes at least that i would think every two weeks and also we only pay 750 for this apt which is really cheap so i don't know where his money is going if he can't afford something like 1200 a month which some people pay for just an apt in a city LOL but he has major anxiety over being in debt or buying a home he can't afford. maybe he is just afraid of going bankrupt or losing the home. but i see people younger than us and not all of them have two working couples and MANY of them have lower paying jobs than Jimmy and they are able to handle it fine. we'll see i guess.

it's exciting looking for a new home. i hope we get one that's not a dog cos there are a few he wanted which in my opinion were horribly plain, not appealing, so boring it was ugly, never lived in which made it lack character and too big for someone who does not have kids but it appealed to him cos it was cheap (140 thousand) but it's also bank owned and foreclosed and i feel very weary of that. to me, this sounds too good to be true and i don't like it.

he thinks its a steal, but i feel there is a gimmick or a trick underneath hidden or a reason why it is so cheap that is not good. and whats worse to me, it looks like a glorified apartment, a cheap apt. the carpet and walls remind me of an apt, the kitchen cabinets and all that and it doesn't have the long halls like the ones i liked or vaulted ceiling with places to put knick knacks on, it doesn't have unique architecture like all the ones i have suared here previously, ones that i loved the most..

Jimmy thinks i am overreacting when i say i hate the foreclosed one [its called towerbridge in wesley chapel i think] but it's how i feel and i am the one who is going to be in it a lot alone so i feel i should more than like it, i should LOVE it and feel like it has promise and potential to make it a cozy home.

I don't feel these things with this particular home {Towerbridge} but i feel that with the other ones Ive shown here. he feels I am being petty and complains about me liking the ones that are more money - well, we saw those ones cos he said it was in his price range, the ones i love start at 149-150 thousand and 2 house are 160 thousand but ALL of these homes were chosen by him and he took the time to bring bothof us physically to these houses so that is a bunch of BS. i feel he is making excuses and can be a control freak and it really gets me pissed.

he gets mad and frustrated at me because sometimes i think he hates having to compromise and feels he makes the money therefore he should have more say than me in what house he buys. i understand he makes the money and he is doing a wonderful thing by buying us a home but i also feel we are a couple in this together and i am going to be his wife and people / husband's who buy homes, buy ones that the wife will love without making the wife feel guilty about money or not working etc.

i resent the fact that he is always bringing up the fact that i dont work or have a normal income while throwing it in my face all the time..as soon as he starts saying this BS, i dont allow him to finish his sentence because i already know what he will say and i think it is absolutely ridiculous and immature/ so i cut him off when he starts with that because its irrelevant to me.

part of showing love for your partner and spouse is buying a home the two of you will love particularly the wife, especially if i should ever be raising his kid and spending most of my time there.

i just feel at times his priorities are all out of order. and he can be a bit selfish and it really gets to me. he always reminds me how i don't work or have an income and i feel deep down he believes i don't deserve any say because its his money and not mine. he knows how i feel because i state it over and over but when it comes down to it all, i keep having to remind him what marriage is. its not about who has the money or who pays what.

marriage is about sharing, loving each other in sickness and health and most of the time this means sharing money, not keeping count on who makes money, who makes more money or who has a job or who does not have a job. anyway. end of vent. :) i just get a little frustrated at times. and our last home hunting experience which was over four hrs in a car, as in part, so tense i'm sure it could be felt across the world.

i wish it wasn't so stressful to look at homes and he could be a little more compromising, validating me when i say i hate something or do not want it etc. i hope the real estate agent is accustomed to seeing couples differ in preference for a home or argue cos if she isn't, i'd be embarrassed.

i am sure the real estate woman felt the tension this past wkend and it was unbecoming to both him and i. i don't want to make a bad impression of either myself or him!! sigh :(

she is also the sister of his best friend's wife - so like making a bad impression on her is the LAST thing i want to do cos she would then probably relay it to them and i don't think they know us well enough, we hardly even see them cos his best friend is always too busy for him.

[jenni wrote me this email after i shared the above with her, giving helpful advice for both jimmy and i. which i later shared with him. it was helpful to both him and i and eased a lot of stress. she made me realize somethings but even more she made him realize some ways he was being very unfair to me and he wrote me a letter acknowledging all that and promising to try harder- i will share this in the following entry after this one.]

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these are a few choice pix from canal pointe one of our top five considerations but not our most favorite from house hunting the weekend prior to last which i have not had time to post up until NOW sorry for the delay. things have been crazy busy and emotionally draining, all over the place. just havent had the energy. i will catch up eventually.

basic house information and important facts on canal pointe:

subdivision: Heritage Isles

3 bedroom/ 2 bathroom

one story, single family home

square feet: 1385 sq.ft

total acreage: 10889 sq. ft.

water: frontage/pond

built in: 2002

selling price: $139,000 ; taxes: 4,176 ; 2,420 Annual CDD Fee ; HOA fee [quarterly] $75.00

pix:

warning: the home looks way better in person than it did in the actual photos. keep in mind that.

exterior view of home/driveway
canal pointe, tampa

living room

kitchen

dining area/eating room

foyer/front room [they were packing - so some rooms were hard to define in terms of their use and how big they were esp the two smaller bedrooms which were full of boxes.]