So we are buying a house. It’s actually a house that, on my wife’s current salary, we would never buy because we wouldn’t be able to afford it. But she’ll start making more money by year’s end and it won’t be a problem.

I had this silly notion that getting a loan for a house we cannot presently afford would be difficult. Haha. Or at least that we would have to demonstrate earning potential to be able to afford it. HAHA!

They really don’t care about my wife’s earning potential. They don’t care that we cannot afford the house on her current income. As far as they’re concerned, we can afford the house in our current economic situation.

Which I guess actually makes sense. Clancy and I are really conservative (“chickenspit” may be the more accurate assessment) and if everybody held themselves to the same standards that we do, nobody would be able to afford a house anywhere. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But given home ownership rates, and despite the housing bubble, our country does seem to somehow make it work.

I ended up consulting two banks for loans. Both made good offers and had friendly and helpful agents that I didn’t want to say “no” to. I ended up going with our regular bank (ORB) instead of the credit card company (3C). I actually felt really about sending the email to my contact at 3C because she was so helpful and had put together an impressive deal. I would have felt just as bad sending an email to ORB guy. I suspect at some point I will feel buyer’s remorse when something goes wrong with a grass-is-greener view that everything would have gone perfectly had I gone the other way.

I emailed 3C lady yesterday evening, and she’s taking it pretty hard. I got an email asking why I jilted her. Then I got a phone call. I missed the phone call, but responded with the email explaining that it was a really tough decision and I made it based on something really minor and situation-specific*. Today I got an email with my disclosures. “This is what you’re missing out on!” I guess. Actually, it’s probably automated.

I was pretty open about the fact that I was talking to two banks. This is why I am such a rotten consumer, though. I hate the idea of taking up someone’s time when I am not actually going to buy their product. This was inevitably true of one of the two companies I was talking to. At the same time, on a purchase this big, it wouldn’t have been responsible to take the first offer.

* – Basically, ORB already had more of our financial documentation in hand. They also required a bit less generally. Most importantly, they didn’t need it right now, which was a big deal because I am having to track a lot of it down.