One thing that took us over a month to get was a lawn mower. When we moved in there was still snow on the ground, but it did not take very long for the grass to grow enough to be unmanageable. We wound up buying a craftsman lawn mower from Sears. It was nowhere near a top of the line model, but it works well enough. The first 3 or 4 times I used it it was very difficult to get started, but now it works like a charm. Our half acre takes about 45 minutes to an hour to mow.

The biggest problem that I have mowing our lawn is that there are some steep points that lead down to the water where it is not really safe to mow, and off one side of our driveway there is too much poison ivy for me to venture into yet. I really need to get an edge trimmer, but I have not bought one yet because I might be getting a hand me down from my fiancé’s grandparents.

Choosing the lawn mower did not take very long. I waited until the lawn mowers were on sale at a few different stores, and then went out and chatted with the salesman at Sears and chose one of the models that they had on display. With proper care, this lawn mower should hopefully last long enough for us to acquire a larger lawn where a bigger mower might be desired. That will hopefully not be for 10 or 15 years.

Our search for a mortgage broker began with a recommendation from our real estate agent. We spent most of our time with this gentleman, but he never really seemed to listen to us or to work within the parameters of what we were trying to do. He seemed more interested in the easier (read: higher commission) way of getting us under contract.

In the end, we had a mad dash in the last few weeks where we switched over to a friend of ours that was able to offer us a much better deal. If we do not pay anything early, then we’d save about $12,000, and needed about $500 less up front. Spending the extra $100 or so a month towards principal will mean that we save even more than that.
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I began searching for a house in early 2005. My fiancé and I were tired of living above a couple of smokers in the middle of the city and wanted a slightly larger place. When I moved to Maine after graduating college, my plan had been to move into a house when I was ready to move out of the apartment that I had gotten, so we decided to start looking.

We found a great real estate agent that knew the area really well and worked with us for a long time to find the right house for us. The biggest problem was that we were not really willing to live in anything that was in the price range that we set forth as what we were willing to pay.
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It has been a bit over 3 months since I bought my first house.

It was very exciting, and very scary, and I am very well pleased with it. This site is going to be a journal of sorts about what I learn about my house and about the home buying process. I hope that anybody who finds this site can find it useful in their own search or in keeping up on their own houses.