another home

Today was the day that we were supposed to turn in our deposit to Siena. Did you notice how I said "supposed to"?? Yup, we have decided to give it up! =( =( =( After doing a lot of number crunching, even though we could afford the Siena place, we would not be saving a lot of money after paying the mortgage, hoa, taxes, etc and the place just seemed way too overpriced. so we decided to forgo it even though we liked the floorplan a lot.

However, there's more! Sooooo, my dad tells me my uncle is moving back to taiwan and is going to sell his townhouse, do you want to go take a look? I've only been there once, and I didn't really remember it, but I didn't have that great of an impression of it (and it was a long time ago) so I was sort of reluctant to go, but supposedly my uncle would give me a good deal if we decided we wanted it, so i was like, ok fine, i guess we can go take a look. it's near the 880 and Brokaw Rd exit, it's actually better than i remembered =P it's 4bdrm 3 bath, all the names of the streets are like chinese names (taipei rd, hong kong rd, tainan rd, etc) the street he lives on is chihong rd! so ... fobby. anyways, it's like a typical townhouse, small narrow streets, it's about 10 yrs old, but my uncle took pretty good care of it. so it looks like we're going to get it, my uncle is going to give it to us for $580k!! for 4 bdrm! i think he's totally underselling it, but i think both my dad and uncle are both pretty clueless as to how crazy the housing market is in the bay area is, so if that's the price they settled on, that's totally fine with me! we're saving over $100k AND we're getting an extra bedroom!! woo! so even though it's not as nice as siena, i think it's good for our starter home. With this townhome, we'll be able to save up more money for our next home =)

some pros:
-it's in a quiet neighborhood (not like siena which is basically just plopped into a business section)
-we'll probably be moving in before/near/during our wedding (for siena we would have to wait til early 2006)
-HOA is half of siena's
-the cost of the townhouse is waaaaaay cheaper than siena
-has 2 car garage & fireplace
-do not have to buy any appliances! for siena we would have had to buy new fridge, washer & dryer
-if we want to keep any of my uncle's furniture, we can take it! i think mostly we'll be keeping all the beds he has in the other bedrooms, so we'll have sooo much room for guests!
-really close to some asian plazas
-there's a small backyard, so i'm thinking of maybe getting a dog after the wedding! we'll see though

some cons:
-no walkin closet, but there is enough closet space in the master bedroom so that's ok.
-the only thing that i don't like so much is that the master bathroom is not so good (i'm hoping maybe we can remodel the bathroom or something before we move in so it's nicer, but it's a little small so i don't know if we would be able to make the modifications i want =P)
-i guess that's it! well i guess i could add one more, we won't be as close to shal & nancy anymore =P hehe

i guess it is sort of a relief to have found a cheaper option. i knew that if we got siena, i would have to change my spending habits, which would have been really really hard for me i think. it's not that i couldn't do it, it's just that i wouldn't be happy having to do it. the only sucky thing is that the house purchase will be coinciding around the same time as our wedding & honeymoon, so that would be looooots of money flying out the door at the same time, it will be very very depressing to see all of our hard earned money being depleted from our accounts.