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On Monday, our non-binding "offer to purchase" times out. In truth, Connecticut has deemed this mutually signed contract as useful as a piece of toilet paper. Supposedly, anyone could have stepped in front of us at any time. Yeah. Guess that's a buyer's benefit of the current market - less competition. Or maybe the seller just likes us...who knows. It does seem bizarre to me, though, that a contract which implicitly states its binding nature has a reputation of being next to worthless.

In any event, in a rush to beat the deadline, we did a long-lunch mad dash out to our attorney's office in Connecticut on Friday. You know it's serious when you have to sign in triplicate with a witness and then hand over a check for your life savings. Now we wait for the seller to provide their signature while we get our financing package completed. We have so many papers to tote around now that we had to stop by Staples for organizational supplies! A simple blue notebook just couldn't keep up anymore.

As a small measure of decompression - from school, from work, from the house-buying process - we went with friends to Lyndhurst yesterday. They were having a Lego festival there, but aside from that it was the first really nice Saturday of the year. Warm weather, spring flowers, and trees in full bloom. A great little trip to unwind and enjoy being out of the house. I tried to take a bunch of pictures...hopefully I'll get a chance (or the energy) to post them soon.

I just added a new category here - Real Estate. That's right. Today we start looking for a house. Okay, well, I've said we've been looking for awhile. But there's a difference between thumbing through Realtor.com and actually calling up a real estate agent. A couple of hours ago, we picked up our loan pre-approval letter. Around here, that's a ticket to shop. Unfortunately, we're going to be Wal-Mart people in a Bloomingdale's world, but we're hoping that the bad economy will turn into an advantage for us.

The effects of the downturn in real estate markets nationwide reached the Lower Hudson Valley with a vengeance in February as sales of existing homes plunged in both Rockland and Westchester counties.

Rockland's sales were down 38.6 percent as the median sales price declined 10.7 percent to $436,500 from $489,000.

Sales in Westchester dropped 22.1 percent as the median fell 7.9 percent to $607,500 from $659,500. Read more...

I don't think we can afford to look in New York - look at where the median home price still hovers for Westchester County. Plus, there's an inherent tax break for living and working in Connecticut. Well, that's not entirely true.

Connecticut charges yearly property taxes on cars at a minimum of $200/yr. based on funky math that combines its current resale value with a per-town tax rate. Like New York, Connecticut also charges home property tax - but where New York's rates are $8k-$12k, Connecticut hovers around $5k-$6k per year. While New York doesn't tax vehicles, even if you add two cars at, say, $300/yr. to a $6k tax bill, you still aren't in the same mess as if you lived in New York. And if you're thinking that all these taxes are deductible at the end of the year, think again. We can't deduct a lot of things including property taxes.