I had an hour long talk with the mortgage broker yesterday morning. I got dad to come in on the call as well since I knew he'd end up having some questions as well. It was a nice conversation. The broker gets a lot of people from Lumber One, and dad's the HR manager for them -- so they've talked before. So it was a lot less formal and a little more informative than most discussion about loans.
It turns out that this loan deal really is pretty good. Since I'm a first time home buyer, and I want to build new construction, the gov't wants to help me with my purchase. The long and short of it is this -- if I get a house where the monthly payments are >= 900$/month then I qualify for $14,500 of my loan to be zero-interest. At the current rate of 5.25%, I'd end up saving a decent chunk of money on not having to pay interest on that. What's more, it sounds like this deal also reduces the PMI I have to pay on the house as well, so I'll save money there too.
Dad's going to do some checking around the yard for more house plans for me to look at. I found one that I like quite a bit already, but it won't hurt to look at a few more plans to see if there's something even more suitable out there.
We already put a hold on the lot out in St. Augusta. It turns out that they do have cable internet out there thru US Cable. Amazingly, Charter and Astound don't go out there, even though it's only about 5 miles away from South St Cloud (like 10 minutes away from SCSU in fact). So hopfully US Cable doesn't suck, otherwise I'm going to be up a creek when working from home! :-P I still haven't called AOL (:: shudders ::) to see if they have high speed out there or not.
Another nice thing about the location of this place is that it's close enough to SCSU that I can go back for my Master's or PhD without the pain of a long commute. So I'm going to look into the graduate studies programs there when I get home. I haven't decided which area I want to go into though: User Interface Design, Networking, Compiler Theory or Artifical Intelligence. Oh well, more stuff to think about -- and I have plenty of time to make that decision!
yes you do...got a call from your mom yesterday and she told me that you were thinking of building which is pretty cool...can't wait until you come home...take care bro.
Choose AI what you realize at the end of your thesis is interesting.
AI was what I focused on in my undergrad. I certainly had fun while doing it. But I'm on the fence about whether I want to continue with it or not. I think I just have to do some soul searching to see what I'm in the mood for. ;-)
Uni is a DRAG! I'm doing Networking here in Edinburgh - it's ridiculous. I've done the same material for three years over and over and over again. I mean, how many times do they need to teach you basic HTML and Java? On a Networking degree?
If the SCSU course is anything like my one you would be insulted by the content. I certainly am.
Building? That's awesome. Build me a house, too! lol.
Can't wait to see ya!
Yes building, and no thanks, one's enough for me! :-P