Whaddayawant

You know how they always ask "What are you looking for?" at the beginning of those house hunting shows? That usually starts this looong list of all the things you could possibly cram into a house, from 4 bedrooms over 3 baths to a porch, a patio and a 1-acre yard, a fireplace, hardwood floors, character, charm and, and, and. And while you can cram these things into a house, chances are it can't be crammed into your budget. Not even close. Nuh-uh. Besides, it's a wishlist like the kind you write up for Christmas when you are seven. The kind where you leaf through those glossy toy catalogs and write down every.little.thing. because your parents told you that simply checking off things with a marker does not constitute a wish list. Heh.

Your first draft of the "things we want in our house" list makes your real estate agent twitch and squirm but she takes you out to look at houses anyhow. She knows that after a while of looking at houses and getting a better idea of what's on the market and what fits into your budget you will amend your wish list ... or stop looking.

Hubby and I didn't really start this adventure resolved to buy a house. If you go back to this entry here you know that we began with a crazy idea of having my parents invest in real estate, not us. We were (and really are still) perfectly happy with living in our historical rental. Before the real estate market crashed we were sorely priced out of our own neighborhood. Houses, even fixer-uppers, went for crazy amounts of money that were way out of our price range. Now, things look different, much to our benefit. We made our house hunting adventure difficult by declaring that we

1. wanted to stay in our neighborhood (119 city blocks in an area of approximately 500 acres)
2. wanted a 2-story house (bye-bye darling bungalows, hubby insists on upstairs bedrooms)
3. needed either an extra bedroom or an area with enough wall space for our library (~1900 books and counting)
4. wanted at least 2 bathrooms
5. wanted 4 bedrooms
6. wanted a working fireplace
7. wanted some cool historical features such as original fireplace mantels, Victorian fretwork, etc.
   
8. wanted a big yard
   
9. wanted 1-2 porches, one preferably upstairs
10. wanted at least 2000 sqft
    
11. wanted to spend the same or less per month on our mortgage than what we are currently paying in rent
    

For the past 6 years we have been living in a 1500sqft 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom upstairs apartment with a livingroom/diningroom combo, with a large dead end of our hallway as library and a butler's pantry as main storage, and a lovely 250 sqft front porch. After looking at a dozen houses or so, we began to modify our list in that we

1. really wanted to stay in our neighborhood
2. wanted a livable fixer-upper
   
3. needed wall space for our library
   
4. wanted at least 1.5 bathrooms
5. wanted 3 bedrooms (one of which would be a dedicated guest bedroom)
   
6. wanted a backyard
   
7. wanted a porch
   
8. wanted to spend the same or less per month on our mortgage than what we are currently paying in rent
9. didn't want to deal with short sales (we aren't that patient)
10. didn't want to fix structural issues
    

Point 1 and 8 were the ones putting us in a pickle. Limiting one's search to 119 city blocks -and- a very strict low budget will send you straight to house hunting hell. Luckily, we were hoping for a livable fixer-upper rather than a turn-key house so that helped. The fact that most Springfield houses are spacious and have wood floors and fireplaces did too.

So, how does the Ugly Duckling compare to our List? Let's Take a look

1. wanted to stay in our neighborhood [Score!]
   
2. wanted a livable fixer-upper [Not quite - it'll take a few weeks to bring electric, plumbing and kitchen up to code and up to speed]
   
3. wanted a 2-story house [Score!]
4. needed wall space for our library [Score! We get a whole room]
5. wanted 3 bedrooms (one of which would be a dedicated guest bedroom) [Score! The Ugly Duckling has 3 upstairs and 1 downstairs]
6. wanted a backyard [Score! even though it's not the biggest]
7. wanted a porch [Score!]
8. wanted to spend the same or less per month on our mortgage than what we are currently paying in rent [Score!]
9. didn't want to deal with shortsales [Score! It's bank-owned]
10. didn't want to fix structural issues [Score! Score! Score!]

From an investment point of view, we're playing it probably as safe as you possibly can in an urban neighborhood (the greatest in the world, by the way) although I have to admit in all our soul searching and house hunting this has never been anything we discussed in great detail. We are buying a home for our family. To us, the Ugly Duckling is home first and investment second. Granted, some of the changes we have planned for it will increase its resale value but that is not the reason why we're making them. Right now it meets our needs and wants and if that should change one day we'll have to reconsider and perhaps sell and move on.

Until then, all we want to do is love on this little old house and our neighborhood and be happy :o)

A whirl of a week

Being under contract feels good. It's one step closer to our goal of making the Ugly Duckling our home. Next thing on our to-do-list is the inspection for which we have a window of 7 days. Now, usually that doesn't prove to be too much of a problem. In our case though it presents a fount of chaos for this Thanksgiving week. Hurray!

Not enough that this is Thanksgiving week cut short by one holiday smack-dab in the middle of the week and with a lot of people unavailable the day before and the day after, no, our Ugly Duckling has been vacant for more than 6 months.
Which means that the electric company requires a separate inspection of the electric of the house before turning on the electric (for the inspection).
Which means you need a licensed electrician to come out to review and test the electric wiring of the house.
Which means the aforementioned electrician needs to get a permit from the city.
Which means that 7 days present a really really small window of opportunity if those 7 days are cut short by one of biggest holidays (save Christmas) in the US.

We're in for quite a ride this week.
So if you could spare a moment to send a good thought or two, a prayer or any other good vibes our way, we'd appreciate it.
Really.
Lots.

Signed and sealed!

We are under contract!

Finally, after much back and forth and quite a bit of limbo dancing, we are now officially under contract for the house we have affectionately dubbed the "Ugly Duckling".

Let me 'splain -that- : our possibly future house is the outmost right house of a set of three nearly identical houses. House 1 and House 3 ("our" house) are almost identical and House 2 appears to be a mirror image of House 1 and 3. While House 1 and 2 feature fresh bright exterior paint jobs, however, House 3 boasts a muted grey-blue exterior offset against a darker grey-blue around the windows making it appear smaller and droopier than its 2 siblings in their Sunday best. The color itself isn't bad bad, but it could definitely use some sprucing up. A little paint, some fresh blooms in the front yard and a good scrubbing.

We're so stinking excited!

After submitting it to all our newly acquired knowledge and having a contractor poke at it in regard to our desired before-move-in projects, we are fairly confident it won't surprise us too much during the inspection. Yes, it is a fixer-upper, but one with reeeally nice potential and as far as we know good bones.

Right now it is chopped up into an upstairs and a downstairs apartment which we plan on rectifying immediately turning it back into a modest single-family-home of a nice 2185 sqft (that's 203 square meters for you European type readers) with an entry hall, livingroom, diningroom, library, kitchen, half bath and laundry/mudroom downstairs and a hallway, 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a master suite with walk-in closet and its own bathroom upstairs. And there will be a yard :o)

Please please, all mighty Inspection Gods, please be good to us this time!

Steep learning curves

Boy, were we in for an eye-opening experience once we began our househunting adventure!

With most of our knowledge regarding house hunting and house buying courtesy of HGTV we quickly learning that the sun does shine brighter on TV! A lot brighter!

Oh, how we envied those couples who had a love-on-first-sight experience! How we marveled when a seller's response took just long enough for your latte to cool down!
How there wasn't really an audible super sonic boom when Sandra whipped out the signed contract!

Now, we weren't and aren't really miserable throughout our house hunting. For the most part it was and is an exciting experience, an adventure, and more often than not it's really my not-so-patient nature that creates a certain frustrated tension.

You know, you wanna get'er done!

Now!

So you can get to the fun bits!

House hunting, however, has kept me fairly preoccupied through the past months. In lieu of crafting and painting I spent hours browsing MLS listings and reading books and webpages on home buying, loan options and home inspections, Husband and I can now talk fairly intelligently about financing and have added new words to our vocabulary. We can decipher abbreviations such as WDO, etc. We are no longer afraid to get down on our knees and crawl halfway into the crawl space of a house. Aaaand we know where -that- smell comes from when a house hasn't been winterized properly.

We wear sensible shoes with thin flat soles to feel our way around a house for structural issues and give the geometry of space between floor and doors a critical eye. And we're still in love with the old homes, the historic details and the undeniable charm of our neighborhood.

What have you learned from your own househunting days? What was the biggest lesson you took with you?

Nomen est Omen

Within days of taking up the house hunting torch I was scouring the internet for promising listings. Frankly, I was kind of like this:

"I'll find those (listings) stairs. I'll whip their butt too. These (listings) stairs won't know which way they're going ... Take drastic steps. Kick it to the curb. Don't mess wit' me. I'm the (listings) Stair Master. I've mastered the (listings) stairs. I wish I had a (listing) step right here, right now. I'd step all over it ...?"

I've gotten so familiar with properties on the market that I can take you on a drive around the 'hood and point at for sale signs, giving you listing price, number of bed and bathrooms and probably other tidbits of househunting trivia. Pre-occupied, remember? And a little obsessing, I guess ... heh. All for a good cause though! Pinky Promise!

Anyways, I learned quickly that telling husband about the "house on 59th" (yes, yes, we did look outside of the 'hood, shame on us!) or the "4-bedroom on Walnut St" didn't help a lot. Addresses didn't mean anything to him unless I connected them to some stand-out feature of the property. That day the idea for nicknames was born.

Instead of referring to each listing by its address we ended up touring

- the "stinky pink"

- the "80s wonder"

- the "english country cottage with a pool"

- the "blue house"

- the "triplex"

- the "exploded cottage"

- the "Termite Temple"

- the "grey barn"

and many more.

So, tell me, which funky properties did you tour? Did you use nicknames to keep track of houses? Or are we just weird that way ...?

Our first offer: The Triplex

The house hunt continues ...

After looking at a number of different houses we finally felt comfortable and excited to put in an actual offer on "The Triplex".
Then a single family home, now chopped up into 3 apartments we were excited about the vast potential we saw: turning it back into a single family home we could keep the smallest of the three apartments (the one that came with its own entry at the side of the house) as convenient in-law-suite or possible rental suite to help pay our mortgage of more quickly.

It came complete with original fireplaces, gorgeous gleaming pine floors and simply massive closet space.

The fact that some scumbags came and tore out the ac compressors even worked in our favor as the seller dropped the purchase price to make up for us having to buy new ones. Every morning on our way to the bus stop we would wave good morning to our house.

Until the inspection ...

What a sad day in (the) history (of our house hunting endeavors). The inspection revealed a staggering list of issues. Serious issues, not just peeling paint or clashing color schemes. Ever seen the movie "The Money Pit"? Well, that's what the inspector called the triplex.

However, we didn't bail right away. We knew we're in for a ride buying a historic home, a house that could easily be our grandparent. You know, topped with that whole deferred maintenance issue when considering buying a REO. But this, this was just too much. Too many big ticket items, not to mention any secret surprises it might harbor, that even with our rehab loan we just didn't feel up to.

So we walked. With a heavy heart.

Would we ever find a little old house to have and to hold?

The House to haunt me

Here's the baby that started it all, back in April. Ain't she pretty (all solid oomph on the outside and sunny brightness on the inside)?

It had everything we could have asked for: charm, wood floors, porches upstairs and downstairs, plenty of bedrooms and enough yard to keep us busy.

So what went wrong? Why - in all those months - have we never ever gotten even close to putting in an actual offer? (Shocking, I know!) And why is it always coming back to flaunt its assets, teasing and tempting, before walking off with the other guy again?

When we first stumbled across it we were charmed, swept off of our feet and madly in love with it (for my husband, it was a first time kind of thing even). Yet, before we could nail down funds, figure out paperwork involved it went to auction and appeared to have been auctioned off right from under our nose. Oh the sadness! Meh :o(

Encouraged that there might indeed a small historic house out there in our fabulicious neighborhood that we could actually afford we teamed up with the bestest real estate agent Mrs T and kept looking. And looking. And looking. 3 months passed and while we'd finally found a property to move to our No 1 spot we hadn't yet committed to it. You know, that whole property virgin "there's got to be The One out there" feeling was holding us back from putting our money where our mouth was.

Then, one morning, there it was: the house! THE house. The house that started it all, it was back on the market at an even better price. I literally bounced from computer (I'd been browsing MLS listings when it showed up as a new listing again) to husband's side babbling like crazy. The excitement! Maybe we had another shot at it!

Yeah ... this lasted for all of an hour before we were told it was already under contract.

Bleah.

Thee houzz, eet sold again.

To an investor. Who is renovating it. So he can put it on the market again.

Gah! I can't help but wonder just how many more times it will come back to haunt me? Somebody should tell it it's bad form to tease like that. Seriously.

Anyways, we have moved on even if we occasionally drive by with wistful sighs and bittersweet smiles. It did set us on our path and we still love it, but it's quite obviously not meant to become our house.

Right?