Well that was fast...

It took about a week to see all of the houses in White Rock and Los Alamos in my price range. There were about 20 in total. Of these, one stood out head and shoulders above the rest, so choosing a place wasn't a difficult decision at all. The challenge was my finances, which I thought was going to be an issue since my conversion paperwork is still off in administrative limbo somewhere. It turned out that I was able to negotiate the price of the house down far enough that I could get basically the mortgage I wanted with my current salary, so the conversion bottleneck evaporated instantly.

Anyway, I now have a signed sales agreement with the seller. I had the place inspected this weekend and the report came back last night. There are a bunch of minor issues, as I assume there always are, but most of the major stuff is in good shape. There are a couple of issues that need to be fixed up front, and I imagine I'll spend most of this week negotiating for these repairs with the seller.

Closing is scheduled for the end of the month. It feels weird that I went from looking at my first home to having a signed agreement in about a week and a half... but that's just how the market is here. There aren't all that many places to choose from, and everyone is anxious to sell.

Nina came up this weekend and stopped by the house during the inspection. She approves, so that's good. And she started her roll as the Art Department™ (I'm apparently the Technical Services Department™), helping me pick out some colors that made sense for the walls. The mint hint that is in the living room has to go.