Things I've Learned So Far

Things you need to prepare yourself for when you're buying a house for the first time:

1. You're going to be too excited to sleep.
I'm talking little kid on Christmas Eve, night before going to Disneyland, teenager getting their first car kind of sleepless excitement. This means your judgement is going to be shit for those first few house showings.

2. You'll consider living in neighborhoods you would normally be afraid to drive through.
At some point you will probably consider square footage per dollar to be more important than your family's safety. A good realtor will save you from yourself.

3.You're going to become an expert on your city.
Taxi drivers are going to ask YOU for directions, since you'll have driven down every single street in your chosen area so many times. You'll know which are the good areas, which are the bad, and where the borders are between the two.

4.You're going to over-estimate your budget and handyman skills.
You'll tell yourself it's got a lot of potential, especially once you fix that fence, window, bathroom tile, carpet, paint, and porch. And you'll probably have to replace that water heater, water softener, stove, refrigerator and washer/dryer. But it's a great deal!

5. Your free-time is gone.
Time not spent sleeping or working will be spent driving through neighborhoods to gauge the area and look for sale signs. The remainder will be spent looking up houses on the internet, and boring your friends with house talk. They may start to avoid you. One or two will start looking for themselves and you can obsess together.

6. You're going to get your heart broken.
You almost never get the first house you make an offer on. Often you'll make an offer on several different houses you've fallen in love with, only to have your hopes crushed into powder each time until you finally find the house that loves you back.

7.You'll get by with a little help from your friends.
Once they know you're in the market, you'll be amazed at the outpouring of support, advice and references from the people you know. They'll tell you about open houses, give you referrals to realtors, offer advice about neighborhoods, and if you're lucky, help you move. Take it all in, because see #1 again.

House Hunt 3: The Search For Red Brick

I got the notice on Monday evening that the house I loved couldn't be mine. The seller had accepted another offer. Curses! They couldn't possibly love that house as much as I did! I was devastated. But it's still early in my search, so I pushed on.

That neighborhood is perfect for me, and I love the little red brick houses with their scalloped trim and fairy-tale feel.

I grabbed my trusty sidekick, Boyfriend, and we cruised up and down every street in that neighborhood, looking for "For Sale" signs. I told him, "This is it. This is our life now. Looking for signs.". When I got home I looked on the realtor's website for more that I could have missed. I'm not obsessed. I swear.

I have 3 more showings tomorrow at 9am. The search continues...

House Hunting 2: The Offering

My heart nearly stopped when I saw a new listing in my favorite neighborhood. It had previously been listed as Under Contract, but the deal had fallen through! I requested a showing on that one instantly, along with 2 others that seemed to have potential.

I got more sleep on Friday night, but Saturday was the longest workday ever. Despite being exhausted, I still didn't get to sleep before 1:30 am. I was up and moving at 7:30 on Sunday morning. I was supposed to meet up with my agent at 9:45 am, but got a text from her asking to go later, since she'd had a long night. I'm basically a nice person, and I said sure, with my heart jittering like a 5 year old's on a sugar buzz. I only texted her once for an E.T.A. Be proud of me.

We didn't meet up until about 11am, which is the time I normally roll out of bed, being a second shift worker. You have no idea the amount of restraint I had to apply to prevent myself driving to the agency office early and just waiting in the parking lot. I have my pride.

The other two houses were a definite NO, but THE house, oh yes! I was in love! I ran from room to room, gushing like a mad woman. I videotaped it. Yes, I wanted to make the offer. No, my agent didn't have any objections to this one either.

We called the seller's agent to see if they had any other offers - the answer was an unbelievable no! We rushed back to the office to write up a proposal and initial everything important. The seller had 24 hours to review it and get back to me.

I show pictures of the house to my parents, my boyfriend, my best friend. Everyone loves it. Everyone is excited.

A couple hours later I get a text: the seller has gotten another offer. Should we raise our offer?! No, the appraisal won't warrant it, we're sure. Let's see what they say, first.

The wait has just gone from awful to excruciating.

More time passes. The offer isn't rejected outright...there's just...nothing.

That was yesterday. I'm still watiing for my counteroffer, acceptance, or...rejection.

And waiting.

I hate waiting.

Shhh... Be Vewy Vewy Quiet! We're Hunting Houses!

I was just pre-qualified by my loan officer to go house hunting, and Friday I was going to look at houses with my realtor. I'm a first-time home buyer, and the excited anticipation of Thursday night almost did me in. I'm very lucky my realtor was looking out for me.

I was positively drunk on possibility and sleep deprivation, so while I had driven through the area of the first house before, and noticed it wasn't the best neighborhood, I didn't want to completely knock it down. After all, it had a lot of square footage and it was in my price range! It could be mine!

It was on a hill. The whole back yard slanted. The weirdly shaped addition to the back where the two main bedrooms were had floorboards that creaked so loud you could hear them throughout the house. There were 5 entrances into a house that was located in an area where police raid escapes might be a necessity. There was no obvious place to put a fridge.

I tried to look at its potential. It's quirky! Not a whole lot of through traffic! Look at all the square footage! Firepit! Gazebo! The garage has barn doors! Right next to a mountain park!

Meanwhile, my realtor is all, " I think this building should be condemned. There's serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members, the wiring is substandard, it's completely inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone."

Reluctantly, I had to agree with her, and we moved on to the next house on our list for the day. And kept on driving, because of the dicey neighborhood and the fact the house was on the corner of a busy main road (always check the area before scheduling a showing folks, to prevent wasting your time and your realtor's). Dr. Spengler called out a cheerful "Good Luck!" to the real estate agent sign in the yard and we moved on to house #3.

House #3 was in the neighborhood I really fell in love with when I first decided I wanted to buy a house back in April, so I had high hopes. Agent Realist pointed out the bullet holes in the large kitchen window, the missing stove (FHA would not approve it without one), and the weird floor plan. Again, no obvious place to put a fridge... and the backyard was the heart-breaker. The dilapidated, four foot high wood fence was falling down in sections and completely missing in others. I have dogs, so before I could even move in I would need to rebuild the fence (preferably taller, since there was NO privacy), along with buying the missing appliances and replacing a window. I don't really have that kind of money.

All I wanted to do was keep driving, hoping we could find something for sale that wasn't already under contract that maybe just hadn't hit our listings yet. I was approved! I wanted to buy a house that day! We drove around a little bit, but sadly, there was no luck there.

That evening I combed the listings again, hoping to find something else to go look at. I had to work on Saturday, but I was off Sunday and Monday, so I could still look some more this weekend!

To Be Continued...