May 23, 2007
Wait and Wonder
It is three o'clock in the middle of a peaceful summer night when CRASH! our closet implodes. Shit. It's no exploding desk, but hey, we broke our apartment. Time to move!
Ever since we stopped by on Sunday to look at the one-hundred-year-old house with the sunporch (and the termites) and the workshop (and the impossible staircase) and the built-in beds (and the invasive bamboo) and the laundry room (and the tragic lack of a dishwasher), I haven't been able to stop decorating it inside my head. The orange walls in the main living area are bold and modern but would have to go if we want to keep our Victorian thrones and oriental rugs. That front bedroom could either be the music room/office or the media room or even the master bed, as intended. We could finally store our bikes in a garage instead of in the kitchen and wouldn't that be quaint! We could totally hang a swing from that huge tree in the sprawling backyard. We could grill on the new deck that we'd be building ourselves after tearing down the rotting one while wearing precious matching bandanas on our hardworking heads.
But...the neighborhood's not great, i.e., not a step up but a step sideways. And even though it's crazymaking, I am only being practical when I consider that the decisions we make now will determine what kind of a place we bring our future children home to. We can't do cold or loud. We just can't. Blah blah progenycakes.
Simon says we should wait until the fall to househunt, as we'd planned. The summer market is reliably hot, so if we wait until after the rush, we'll have less competition and more leverage, he reasons. Yes, but also less selection. And besides, buying a house here isn't like buying a house in the suburbs, where swaths of openspace become, in the blink of an eye, "planned communities" and if you don't get the house with Layout #4 on Street A, just turn the corner and buy the Layout #4 on Street B. This isn't like going to Barnes and Noble for a copy of Patricia Cornwell's latest; it's like going to a used bookstore and browsing for nothing in particular until you come upon a real jewel, something that, if you don't buy it then and there, will be gone tomorrow, never to be seen by the likes of you ever again. This isn't a deliberator's real estate market but a jumper's one. A leap-of-faither's, even.
As it is, we are no further along--in practicality, at least; in readiness, I am much farther along--than we were a week or a month ago. We haven't talked to any mortgage brokers or lenders and we still get three to four emails a day from our realtor, each with several featured properties within our projected price range, which may or may not be relevant considering the realtor basically pulled the numbers out of her butt. I'm sure it's a very knowledgable and experienced butt, but still...
And yet, as we continue to get these emails, I continue to get excited at the possibility that each property (well, maybe not the ugly ones) could be IT. Which is stupid, really, because it's not uncommon for houses to sell after mere days on the market here. And so I'm left with blueprints on post-it notes, probable layouts I've cobbled together from whatever pictures I can find of the houses on the internet. "Let's see...if there's a window there and a door there, that means the staircase is here and that means it must curve as it goes up here, so...SPIRAL STAIRCASE! SIMON! LET'S MAKE AN OFFER!" Which, of course, we are nowhere near prepared to do.
Sigh.
If you've stopped by here for any length of time, you've probably noticed my propensity to, if it's not too early for an equine analogy, strain at my harness. I'm constantly trying launch headlong into my future, acting (mostly unnecessarily) as though, if I don't jump now, it will all get away from me. Which, of course, it won't. If we don't score this house with the spiral staircase, we'll score another house with a sprial staircase. Or maybe not a spiral staircase but a jacuzzi tub. Or maybe just really cute bars on the windows! Point is, where I am now is forcing myself to remain somewhat calm and cool about the whole thing and instead of sending Simon twenty manic emails about the PARKING SPACE and the DISHWASHER and the SUNPORCH, I only send him five. Well, five in the morning and five in the afternoon.
The good news is that he's excited about the possibilities too and is totally onboard. It was all his idea to begin with, in fact, so LET'S REMEMBER THAT, HMMM? Thus it is that I hearby resolve not to get desperate and panicky that we're letting all the (semi-)good, (semi-)affordable homes slip through our fingers while we wait until the wind changes and that when winter comes we'll find ourselves once again holding Ziploc bags full of warm water to our noses to keep them (our noses) from turning black and falling into our soup. That said, this is not a passive game we're playing; we do need to take some steps before we're prepared to take a leap. It is with that in mind that I'm going to think of this limbo as the engagement/prenatal phase of the homeownership process. It's a time to learn and plan and get all of our ducks in order. It's also a time to be a little irrantional--freak out and design pretend housewarming invites and figure out which wall will accomodate the piano. Most importantly, though, at least for now, it's time to enjoy and bask in the excitement of a thousands What Ifs because one day, maybe sooner, maybe later, it will all be over and we'll be knee-deep in leaky roofs and backed-up sewers and then, dear readers, what shall we do?
Posted by Leah at May 23, 2007 11:19 AMI'm in the exact same place except we're trying to get our current house ready to sell at the same time.
I'm currently mourning a sweet townhouse that we never even got a chance to look at because it sold in the couple of days our realtor was out of town. I suppose he’s justified in trying to have a personal life, I just wish it wasn’t when I wanted to look at properties! :)
Posted by: Tara at May 23, 2007 03:02 PMI love your enthusiasm! I can't speak for anyone else, or even for how it works on your side of the world, but our recent house buying experience was kind of an organic adventure. What I mean to say is, we knew we wanted to buy, just weren't sure where, we had a rough idea of how much we could afford to spend. (a mortgage broker had done some sums for us) So we had a look around at a potential area and on our second visit, our house found us. Sure there are lots of compromises, area, space etc but there are lots of pros as well, trees perfect for a hammock, deck with a view of the valley! And then before we knew it we had made an offer, had an offer accepted, panicked for three days waiting to get loan approval, counter offered when we discovered how rotten the deck actually was.
And we get the keys on Monday!
Good luck, and keep planning those housewarming invites! You need to be practical on so many levels but ultimately the house will be somewhere you are going to live so that emotional connection is vital!
Posted by: The Real Mrs White at May 23, 2007 03:56 PMleah, the time will happen and the house will appear. do you know that i actually cried about a house that sold... a house i never stepped foot in but was sure that it was the house.
it will happen and that house will be amazing. and it is awesome that you two are doing it together.
Posted by: jeorg at May 23, 2007 04:17 PMWe looked at somewhere in the range of 30 houses before we found this one. We drove around every weekend and sometimes during the week, looking at neighborhoods we liked. It was crazy. Be picky. Have dealbreakers. (Mine were decent sized kitchen, gas stove, and most importantly NO HOA!). It's a pain in the ass sometimes but it's worth it. We made an offer and had it accepted the same day we found our house. The house is far from perfect, but it fits us for now and we love it. The fist time is always a learning experience, if anything.
Posted by: ayankintexas at May 23, 2007 04:17 PMJeorg--I like your confidence, but I don't really think we can be that relaxed in this market. We're not in a place or a financial situation in which we can find the perfect house in a good neighborhood, albeit with a few little annoying "eccentricities"; it's unfortunately going to be a game of Which House/Neighborhood Sucks Least.
On a related note, Yank, we HAVE to bend on our so-called dealbreakers and we absolutely CAN'T afford to live in a neighborhood we like. The only house we've seen in our price range and in a non-ghetto neighborhood was $450,000, probate, as-is, and literally sliding down the hillside, as in the foundation was cracked in a straight line and the whole thing was on a tilt into an abyss. The reality is we are looking for something that has no major foundation/pest issues and no meth labs or chalk outlines of bodies within, oh, 100 feet. It's a downer to be sure, but we need to be realistic.
Footnote: This will be Simon's SECOND time buying a house.
Posted by: Leah at May 23, 2007 04:31 PMNow I feel like a bit of a chump for being so negative. Although, actually, I'm NOT being negative, just realistic. Also a tad bratty about the fact that unless you live here and know how much I earn at my job (hint: less than the national average of an elementary school teacher), you really really don't know what it's like. Also, I am habitually bad at taking advice. :/
Posted by: Leah at May 23, 2007 04:52 PMI have pretty much given up on buying a house in L.A. We got preapproved, we got a real estate agent and all that did was show us a bunch of million dollar dumps. Or mansions in dumpy areas.
John still thinks prices will start dropping in the third quarter of 2008, but I think even he is beginning to doubt. I mean seriously, L.A. home prices went up ANOTHER 6% while most of the rest of the state (SD included) dropped by 4.5%. Maybe we're just lagging and we'll catch up later. Maybe.
In the meantime, I keep hinting that we could possibly move... maybe to Boise! Been reading lots of good things about it. I've lived so many places, I think I could make almost anywhere work. (OK, maybe not the deep south. And not NY. Or Florida. Or Alaska. Or the East Coast in general. And not the Midwest either.) I've done weeks and weeks of research on just about every major city you can think of and for some reason keep going back to Boise, Idaho. Very strange. Trying to convince John to go visit it with me, but he's being stubborn. Sigh.
Anyway, I hope you DO buy a place. Because it will give us hope.
Posted by: gimmy at May 23, 2007 05:01 PMBoise = Utah North. Seriously, it's only a matter of time before they annex.
That said, growing up around Mormons can be nice if you do it right.
Posted by: Leah at May 23, 2007 05:04 PMWell I live "here" (or at least grew up a little south of "here.") and probably make even LESS than you Leah. And Superman and I qualified for, and bought a house in a neighborhood we totally like now that we're here but oh my gosh it's so far away from the houses our parents own which are now worth upwards of 1 MILLION dollars just because of location. Oh yeah and when escrow closed on our house neither of us had a job. Yay!
Seriously though I'm fairly certain you'll happen upon something that will just click. You'll both know that it's IT. Maybe not the perfect IT but it'll be the IT you can afford and be happy in. And I can't wait to see IT. =)
Beck--When we find something that passes for IT, I guarantee you I will LOVE it and not stop talking about how much I love it, even if it kinda sucks. I base this prediction on two things: (1) my general optimism (I really am super positive overall) and (2) my ability thus far to get attached to numerous houses I find online that are imperfect in a trillion ways but "aren't that bad if you squint!"
You and Superman and Superbaby will be on our housewarming invite list!
Best of luck!! You know what I do so email me if you want any insider info.
Posted by: monkey at May 23, 2007 05:22 PMHehehe, "progenycakes".
Posted by: Rachel at May 24, 2007 07:30 AMAre you two married?
Posted by: aliastaken at May 24, 2007 07:48 AMNope. And yes, I realize the complications that creates re: housebuying...
Posted by: Leah at May 24, 2007 10:38 AMi just took the home owning plunge with my boyfriend. my advice, start looking now, even if you aren't ready to buy. maybe skip going out with the realtor to start with and just hit up some open houses. we had this whole list of things we thought we wanted and needed, and that totally changed once we started actually looking (in person not the internet). but what you are doing now, looking online, figuring out stuff, i think is just as important as the actual looking. if we hadn't done that first no way would we be prepared to actually purchase.
good luck house hunting, and be patient. not losing your cool during the proccess is like 80% of the battle.
Posted by: lisa at May 24, 2007 12:00 PM... not to mention the complications it creates where your 'progeny' is concerned. If you ask me (and you didn't), you are putting the cart before the horse.
Posted by: aliastaken at May 24, 2007 12:07 PMAliastaken--Without knowing the whole story, I can see why you'd think that.
Posted by: Leah at May 24, 2007 12:14 PMI hear you on the rabid wanting of a house. I'll just be over here, quietly stressing out about my whole "moving to California but we don't know where yet and we don't have jobs yet and if we move there will we ever be able to buy a house" thing.
Posted by: felicity at May 24, 2007 07:02 PMAt least looking at houses is a step in the right direction. I will give you some unsolicited advice, though, that I hope helps:
• That old dump isn't the only house, so don't be afraid to keep looking.
• You can change the house, which likely includes adding a dishwasher (even one of the roll-around kind), but ... and I stress ... you can't change the neighborhood. If this is somewhere you picture raising a family, make sure it's where you want to be. I live in an older, but still "nice" neighborhood, but some of the neighbors are hideous (fat, balding shirtless guys and snotty, rude kids ... a few junk cars ... ugh).
• Don't stress too much. Make it as fun as you possibly can, because it is fun buying a house. I mean, it's stressful, too, but you already know that. (whispering ... sometimes it's stressful to own a home, but I'm sure you already know that, too).
Posted by: Texas T-bone at May 25, 2007 09:46 AMHoly cow... that is a lot of clothes. And also a lot of folding.
Posted by: Tricia at May 25, 2007 01:24 PM
