All signs point to my conversion to staff being imminent, so I took some tentative steps towards the purchase of my first home today. Actually, it all started last night, when Minesh told me I should go to an open house at his mortgage broker's office. I show up to find all the employees in cocktail dresses; turns out it was a wine and cheese tasting party, but formal dress was not required and only the employees got dressed up anyway. I ate lots of cheese. Minesh introduced me to his real estate agent and the owner of the brokerage, both of whom were great.

So today, being my Friday off, I spent meeting with both of these women and getting my affairs in order for starting the long process of finding a home. I have now been pre-approved to borrow enough money to buy Jupiter.

I calculated how much money I could afford to spend per month on a mortgage, making some assumptions on what my post-conversion salary will be, and from that back-calculated what a upper limit on selling price for a home would be. I gave that number to the real estate agent and she gave me print outs of every house in town that was selling for less than that. I drove down to White Rock and did some drive-bys, and was shocked at how little my money will get me here. Every house on my list was very very small. I'm sure some of them are nice inside, but I sort of felt like I might be better off buying a yurt.

Then, when I got home, I re-did my calculations and realized that I had made a big math error in my buget and would actually be able to afford quite a bit more than I had originally thought. And angels sang...

There seem to be two thresholds in housing quality in the Los Alamos area. Below one threshold, the only single-family homes are of the pre-manufactured and on-wheels variety. Between that and the upper threshold are the tiny one-roomers I drove by today. And above the upper threshold are normal homes for full-sized people. Luckily, once my math error was rectified, my financial capabilities fall just above the upper threshold and the houses available to me look infinitely more attractive. Aaah. Now I just have to schedule a dozen or so walk-arounds and actually see these places.

I'm excited.