Author: Michele Molnar, Videographer/Editor

You would think that after more than 11 years of working in financial news, I would’ve learned something. You would think that one of my co-workers would’ve told me I’m crazy for buying a house by myself. Ok, to be fair, my boss Scott did tell me. But, I’m sorry Scott (and you know very well), I never listen.

I blogged about my home buying “adventures” in September. Now, I’ve got an update. I moved in to my new home a month ago, and I do love it…with a few exceptions.

First, there’s that whole Big Foot thing. Let me tell you, he is alive and well and living in my backyard, scaring me and my dog in the middle of the night. OK, my Big Foot probably is the 7 deer that are always in my driveway, but they sure sound BIG!

Second, who knew that I would be inundated with mail from mortgage companies and oil companies and “welcome to the neighborhood” fliers. (But, yet, I still can’t find the good pizza or Chinese restaurants that deliver.) I need to eat, not re-fi! Don’t these people realize I already have a mortgage? And, after everything I went through trying to close, do they REALLY think I want to go through it again?

Subprime. Bankruptcy. Short sales. They’re three of the many words I am so tired of hearing. They all mean the same thing in the end: People are losing their homes for reasons they never understood in the first place.

In January, I started the journey of buying a house in the New Jersey area. After a couple of months of looking at houses I would have been scared to walk into alone, I thought I had found the perfect house. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a pool, over an acre of land… WAY too much house for a single girl…but then again I do have a cat, a dog and those annoying hermit crabs I won down the shore 3 years ago. (Shouldn’t they be gone by now? Like goldfish won at the town fair?)

I saw the house and immediately fell in love with it. I pictured my future there. I loved it so much I went inside three times to talk to the owner and finally (probably breaking all the rules) asked him what I needed to do to get this house. He and his wife told me they WANTED me to have the house because they saw what it meant to me. I thought it was a done deal. I was ready to move in that day. That day was in March.