Conversations Take A Turn For The Serious

by Audrey Ference

Hoo boy, things have been a little heavy around the old Ference-Smith house of late. See, I’ve come into some money. Which is awesome. But it has changed the conversation about buying an apartment from, “I’d really love to buy someday when we’ve saved enough for a down payment” to, “OK, now, what’s this whole mortgage thing again?”

Which is a little scary. I mean, I do want to buy an apartment. Like a lot. After this spring’s getting kicked out of our place debacle, I look forward to living somewhere that I am in control of. And unlike many of my friends, the commitment of home buying doesn’t seem scary to me.

I guess because we can’t afford to borrow a lot—our mortgage payments wouldn’t be much more than we pay in rent—so it’s not like we’d take on some huge financial burden. And if we wanted to live somewhere else for a while, we’d just rent it out. The New York rental market being what it is, I don’t think we’d be “tied down” just by owning a place.

It’s just that, well, I didn’t think this time would come so quickly. Frank and I have been saving money, but since I’m a nonprofit employee by day and a writer by night, and he’s a copyeditor by day and a writer by night, we are not exactly big earners. I sort of figured it would take us a good five or so years to save a meager 10% down payment.

And now suddenly we (well, technically I) have 20% ready to go. Which again: yay! But also: holy shit! Because there is a lot of stuff to figure out when you are thinking about buying an apartment with someone. Obviously, there’s a lot to learn about the process, which is pretty overwhelming at first: lenders, points, property tax, first time home buyer programs, closing costs, inspections, timing the market, all the mazillions of things renters never think about. Those things are learnable, though scary.