And Now, New England

So Much Has Changed

For four months I’ve been telling myself that I need to post something. And it’s not that I don’t have anything to say. And it certainly isn’t that I haven’t taken photos to tell the story. It’s just that so much has changed, where do I start and where do I find the time?

Ivan, Now a Doctor, Matched

Mid-March, we received notice that Ivan matched to a residency program. He would be a resident family physician at University of Connecticut in Hartford, beginning July. A couple weeks later, he graduated from medical school, magna cum laude and is now an M.D.

Goodbye, Brooklyn

On May 2nd, we moved out of our 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, New York. The next day, the impossible happened — we bought a house in Bristol, Connecticut.

I say that it was impossible because it really wasn’t a simple matter. Not that buying a house ever is. But our situation wasn’t like many others.

• First: We had no significant source of income to provide for a lender to pre-qualify us for a mortgage. Yet we had a staggering amount of debt from medical school. But there is a neat option for newly graduated medical students. It’s called a physician loan and it’s a conventional mortgage that allows the buyer to put down less than the standard 20% and still avoid paying private mortgage insurance. This loan exists because of the almost non-existent default rate for doctors.
• Second: We had less than 45 days to locate, make an offer and close on a house before our current lease ended. Oh, and we had nowhere else to go. So we really needed things to go smoothly.
• Third: The seller’s agent was a problem, routinely avoiding phone calls and not conveying information properly.
• Fourth: The appraisal came back too low.

Somehow, though, it all worked out.

On the morning of May 2nd we packed up all of our possessions into a 15-foot U-Haul. Babe rode with me and Ivan in the truck and Banjo rode with my mom in her SUV. We drove 3-1/2 hours to a Motel 6 in Connecticut (one of the only pet-friendly and affordable hotels available), spent the night and the following morning signed the papers in our attorney’s office. And, just like that, we were homeowners.