I'm Approved!

That's the master bedroom of the place with the fabulous paintjob. If I take it, I'll let them keep the dogs.

I finally worked up the nerve to call the mortgage broker I think my RE agent is sleeping with, today.

I was on the phone with him for about 2 minutes, 3 tops. He asked me where I worked, how much I made, my full name and address and my SSN. About 10 seconds later I heard this gasp on the phone.

I feared the worst. "What is it?" I croaked. "Your FICO!" he said. "Bad?" I queried. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" he practically screamed. Without going into too many details lets just say that it's over 800. Apparently it gets that high when a) you pay your bills, b) on time and c) your debts consist of a car payment and a single credit card.

Then I laid the "Vietnam era veteran" and "first-time-homebuyer" bombs on him and that did it. Apparently there are lots of lending institutions who'd be ever so happy to throw tons of cash at me in the hopes of getting most of it back someday. In spades.

He announced that he was going to immediately fax over some sort of letter of recommendation to my RE agent, assuring her that I wasn't a total waste of her time and that, by all means, keep showing me places to live. Oh, and he finished by saying that although I'd only expressed an interest in borrowing about a quarter of a million, he'd have no problem if I wanted to go a little higher than that.

I'm feeling rather blase about the whole thing at this point. Mostly it's because my biggest fear has been faced, that somebody would laugh in my face if I asked to borrow that much money. He didn't laugh. He was nice. It was painless (I'm sure the real pain comes at Closing.)

I feel like I've taken another baby-step towards adulthood.

None too soon!