Well, looks like I'm going to buy a house... Friday my mom called me saying that they were coming to the Bay Area to visit my sister Steph and look at some houses. But since it was on Saturday I wanted to go gaming instead and they were fine with that. I told them that if they found anything interesting we could go see it Sunday -- not expecting them to find anything interesting of course since it is Super Bowl Sunday. Much to my surprise though, they did find a coupld of likely prospects and wanted to come over Sunday morning to show them to me. Oh well, at least I could tape the game.

So today we saw three place. The first was Ryland Glen in Union City, about a mile West of the I-880, only three exits south of the 92. That makes it about a half hour from Oracle. The neighborhood looked fine, not exactly suburbs because the homes are next to a busy road. There's a nice shopping center nearby, with a Century 25 cineplex. It's a townhouse community, so no real yards and you have houses sharing walls. But it's new construction and only a few homes still have scaffolding around them.

The houses weren't big -- 1200 to 1700 square feet. Two stories with two-car garages (some are tandem). There were only like 4-5 still available and the one I liked still needs a lot of interior work to finish. It's the largest model, though in between two other houses so not that many windows. One level in from the street so traffic noise shouldn't be a problem. Much bigger than my current apartment and probably too big for me. But it does give me room to grow should get a family.

Since that was only the first house I wanted to see one other location before I settled on this one. Drive across the bay to a condominium complex. One or two exits north of the 92 on the 101, making it a 10 minute drive to Oracle. Nice new place, with only one-bedroom places left. Hmm, about the size of my apartment, maybe a little smaller. Each unit has its own washer and dryer. The two bedroom units are nicer and that's what my sister wants so she's on a waiting list. One bedrooms are $280k. Not a great neighborhood -- it looks about as good as the one I live in currently. When it comes right down to it though, it's a bit too small for me. I can't imagine living 30 years in a place that small.

Mom wanted to see one other place. It's about a mile East of the I-880 on Jackson Road (which is the 92), next to City Hall in downtown Hayward. These homes are about $350k, three stories but long and thin. The first floor is a two-car tandem garage plus a study. Climb up the stair and you have your living room, dining room, kitchen, and a bedroom laid out on a line. Climb up to the third level (and these were long stairs) and you have the master bedroom and another bedroom. Way too much climbing for my tastes and the narrow building is a bit claustrophobic.

So we settled on the Ryland home. $400k and I'm going to put down $100k by selling all of my Oracle stock (well, the shares that I can exercise). Monthly payments are about $2700 which includes property taxes, home insurance, and home association fees. That puts it at the upper limit of what I can pay, by diverting all of my 401k, ESPP, and family loan payments. But in that case my standard of living is the same, so I don't have to stop spending money on games and books. Then next year when I get my tax rebate for the mortgage payments I'll have enough extra cash to start up 401k at least and probably ESPP too.

So after one day of seriously looking at places I've already decided on a house -- very much how I do my shopping. Friday I go in with my documents for a loan preapproval and if my credit is good that's the only thing left barring me. I'm not too sure how I feel, it's happening so fast. Yes, it's great to own a house, but it's a big responsibility too. I mean, I'm making a decision that will stick with me perhaps for the rest of my life. And I have to start planning on how I'm going to move and take care of the dozens of little details. As if I didn't have enough to do in my life already...