Home Sweet Home

It seems a little strange to start a blog almost exactly one year after buying our first house, but considering that we had no idea what we were really getting into, and considering that we did not originally plan to do all of the projects that we ended up doing—well, I guess you can say that hindsight is 20/20.  Here’s a little rundown on how it all happened…

In 2009, it felt like everyone around us was buying a house.  And many of them were, mainly due to the low cost of housing and the $8,000 tax credit available.  Whenever we talked about buying a house, both of us agreed that we wanted to save up a nice 20% down payment before taking the plunge.  We are big believers in budgeting and paying with cash as often as possible, plus it felt like the responsible thing to do.  So we continued doing our laundry at the laundromat and kept many of our belongings in storage at Matt’s mom’s place.  But when the government decided to extend the tax credit, I have to admit that we started to rethink our decision.  It’s not that we couldn’t stand the thought of living in our apartment for a few more years, but when we actually started adding up numbers, it quickly became apparent that it would take many years for us to save up for a 20% down payment (and we would lose the free $8,000), plus we realized that in a few years the prices of housing might go up drastically, including interest rates.  On top of everything, we knew that it would take a long time to save up that amount of money with Matt in nursing school and my job teaching at a charter school.

Within a few days of saying we “might start looking eventually,” we spotted a house that I dubbed “the Pottery Barn house.”  We were pretty sure that it was way out of our price range, but Matt called the number the next day just for fun, and before we knew it, we were getting MLS listings and had a realtor.   If you’ve ever seen the MLS listings, they’re super addicting.  Each night we would pick out our dream houses, and soon we started walking through them with our realtor, Jennifer.

As I think back to the first houses we looked at, I’m kind of amazed that I didn’t have more requirements for them.  I mean, I’m a ducks in a row kind of gal—but the excitement of looking for a place to call our own must have dulled my senses a bit—and since we had a smaller budget than most, I think we felt like we couldn’t be too picky.  All that said, we did have some stipulations.  We wanted a quaint downtown house with charm.  We wanted hardwood floors.  We hoped for a fireplace.  We also knew that most of the houses we were going to look at in the downtown area would need some cosmetic fixes, which was fine with us.

After just a few weeks of searching, we found a house that was simply adorable—claw foot tub, thick molding, hardwood floors, and those awesome windows that pop out, rather than slide up.  We kept calling it the cottage house.  Long story short, we put an offer on the house that was significantly lower than what they were asking, and on Christmas Eve, they turned our offer down.  (Later, we found out that they accepted an offer even lower than ours, but the house had been sitting on the market for quite awhile at that point.)  While it was frustrating to lose the house, we both were somewhat relieved, because the location was not ideal, nor was the fact that it was situated next to an apartment building.  And the house needed some serious work, too.  More work than was obvious at first glance, and since it was an early turn of the century house, it cost more to fix everything.  Looking back, I can say it was actually a huge blessing that the deal fell through.

About two weeks later, though, our realtor called us up and said she had just previewed a house that was going to sell fast—and it was in much better location with the likelihood of gaining serious equity.  So on a Saturday night, we drove downtown to see the house.   We pulled up to a house that was picture perfect—and I flipped out.  I was literally dancing on the sidewalk and yelling that it was everything we wanted—I didn’t even care to see the inside—it was that perfect.  Little did I know that Matt was starting to wonder if we were on the wrong street, as our realtor was nowhere in sight, and the house seemed far nicer than what would normally be within our price range.  Turns out that we had the correct address, but the wrong street!  I was devastated, but hopeful that the real house would be just as great.

After driving one block over, we pulled up to the correct house.  And let me just say…it was not quite what I had hoped for.  Not even close.  We opened the door to find our realtor happily waiting for us.  I think our shock was apparent to her, because before we could even open our mouths, she told us to picture the house without the creepy striped awnings and stained carpet.  To consider what it would look like with new paint and new light fixtures.  To consider that the house already had several investors vying for it, even though no pictures were yet posted on the MLS.  And in a nutshell, that is how we bought our little fixer-upper…by dreaming of what it could be…and by offering a tad more for the house than the asking price.  Little did we know the adventures that awaited us.