The further adventures of an earthbound alien

Yes! The housing loan that we have been pushing up that big hill has finally been approved. It was a long hard paper-filled journy and I won't go into too much detail... but let me tell you about how I felt, when about 30 days into it, when the mind numbingly, over regulated and sorely bused mortgage company we were using went up against the bureaucratic black hole that is my former employer. Oh, how the paper flew and the unreasonable demands were slapped away.

If you really want to know what the pit falls are of buying a house in this market and having to deal with gun shy mortgage companies, who's solution to all of their self-imposed internal turmoil seems to be to not approve anyone, please ask. But make sure you do it over drinks, and leave the children at home.

The end result of this tail of this nice family of four who make good money, have bought five houses and have sold two, and who have immaculate credit and have never missed a mortgage or even a rent payment is...
We have a new house.
Caution, actual house may be less, "barny" and the location slightly more, "Burbanky".

I'm not sure but I think the rigors of moving for the 31st time will be a dog-shit free walk in the park compared to the loan process.
So, what have we learned?

Good time to by because:
1) Prices are low
2) Interest rates are low.
3) Realtors are desperate (but they'd never let you know it)
4) The new stimulus package offers a $15,000 intensive to first time home buyers (that's 10% on a halfway decent home anywhere in the US besides California)

and it's a bad time to buy because
1) Mortgage companies are run by baboons.

Horay!! Let's all move!!!