Historical Lows

Ok, so I have heard sooo many times that interest rates on mortgages were at historical lows but I didn't really do the math until I attended a homebuyer seminar yesterday at work....now I feel the sense of urgency that everyone else has been feeling. The low interest rates, home prices at 2003 levels ( in my area at least), and the 8k homebuyer credit are all making me feel like we need to get moving on this.



We have started going to open houses, mainly just to see what we can get in different communities for our dollar...but now I'm thinking, we need to get serious about this. To take advantage of the first time home buyer credit, you must close by 12/1/09...closing takes about 60 days so that's the end of September...which means we need to start looking if we are at all serious.



The cons to buying now:

Will eliminate our cash reserve in an extremely iffy market



I've got one year left of school and will need to cut my hours from 40 to 30 hours beginning in September to accommodate my school schedule



The initial plan was to wait until we had a kid so we would know what to expect for child care costs



I don't know what to expect for my salary after school, I have heard that I may need to take a pay cut if you can believe it, although my salary is stagnant in my current position and has been for the 6 years I've been here so I doubt that will be the case.



Addendum: I wrote this a few days ago and forgot to put it up. We decided to get pre approved and start looking....first, we need to have a convo with the landlords because this would mean breaking the lease agreement. Next up--get preapproved.