3 Weeks

If all goes as planned, that is when my husband and I will close on our first house. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

I'm still afraid to assume anything, even though I have no reason to assume the mortgage application won't be approved. The worst that can happen is a delay on the closing date, which would be a pain in the butt, but not a deal-breaker.

Of course, this is where it pays to know people with connections. It turns out our realtor used to be an appraiser for one of the banks our mortgage company works with, plus she's good friends with a branch manager at the bank we're going through for the mortgage application. Something tells me she may have exploited these connections to get everyone to move quickly. I would love to know if we're approved for sure by next week, but I'm not holding my breath, since it seems like every time I assume things will start to go smoothly something manages to go wrong!

At this point I don't know what else could possibly go wrong, unless the appraiser decides the property is worth less than what we're paying (unlikely, since homes in that neighborhood typically sell for $20k - $100k more than our purchase prices), or credit freezes up entirely (my income and credit score alone are both good enough to get approved as things stand now, or so says everyone I've dealt with so far).

So, barring any major issues, in three weeks this will be ours:
Certainly not extravagant, but pretty darn cute, and it'll be even better once we're through with it!