Homeowner? I Don't Think So.

First of all, this:

Seven Stacks of... Script?

No, we are not having a boisterous bacchanalia; that pile o'packets is the sum total of our books (mostly).  Liquor boxes are small and sturdy, which makes them excellent for transporting our trades (seriously- someone stop me) which means I've been making friends down on Main Street....  And pretending to be deaf to heavily-Russian-accented-voices and their opinions of my bosom and the rights it affords me.  ::cough::

We close on the house tomorrow, and- me being who I am- I spent last night reviewing the 90+ pages of closing documents (and catching errors and questionable entries).  As I slogged through that tome (the trick to deciphering legalese is to avoid distractions- like music- and to go reeeaaaaallly slowly to ensure you don't revert to "this-is-boring-let's-skim-it" habits) I came to a realization:

We are not going to be home-owners.

Everyone keeps using phrases like, 'first-time home-owners' and 'finally own your own place!', but the thing is- we aren't.  We really, really aren't.  We're going to be mortgage-owners.  Long-term-home-buyers might be the most optimistic way of phrasing it.  And I think that's something that too many people either gloss over, or just don't give too much thought to.  But it's right there in the contract- we are expressly forbidden from doing anything that might lower the value of the property.  Do you know who gets to dictate what is and isn't allowed to be done to something?  Yeah, the person who owns it.  Which in this case is the bank.  Sobering, isn't it?

Anyway, back to packing...