House Hunting - blog from the past

While you wait for a real update, thought I'd share an old write up from May (before BMJ) during our search for the perfect home! Names of the homes have been fabricated to protect identities =)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

House Hunting

The search for a house continues. Its like a drug. Its like finding the perfect mate. Its like an emotional f*ck'n roller coaster ride.

We found a house to make another offer on. This will be our almost third offer on a place. I say 'almost' because the first offer we made was on a house that already had an offer pending and we made a 'back up' offer on it just in case it fell through. Looking back our offer was a joke because it didn't even meet the asking price. Being the experienced home shoppers that we are now (ha!) we realized we should have made an offer over asking to entice the sellers to let us have the place. I really do think that the houses we have been really interested in will lead us to finding our true home. It is like finding a life partner. You have flings with some house and then get serious with others only to realize it wasn't meant to be and you just can't wait to find "the one".

The first house that really made the light bulb go off in my head that I could actually own and have a 'house' was MacGuire. I loved MacGuire. MacGuire was perfect in so many ways. I loved the look of the house, character style, blue with white trimmings. The layout was excellent. A good size and a nice big back yard for the dogs to have fun in. It also had a beautiful cherry blossom tree in the back which I imaged having a swing hang from it in the summer. Unfortunately there is a nice motel sitting right across the street. We didn't know that until we got to the open house. *sigh* Perfect but wrong location.

After the MacGuire escapade, we met Winnifred. Winnifred was totally remodeled and updated inside and out. She had a very big and beautiful yard with a little pond. You didn't need to go to the park because it was right in your own backyard!! Winnifred was the first offer we made (the one that doesn't really count) on a house. The lady who owned Winnifred is also an interior designer and upgraded the house very very nicely. I was surprised that Tuboo was ok with the location. A bit further out. He's more of a westside boy so having him like this location was very odd. But Tuboo fell in love with the interior of the house and was crushed when we didn't get it. I didn't feel so badly because I was still sad about MacGuire.

After Winnifred, we met Chester. Chester was back in the location that we've been looking in. He was also a character home, needed a paint job but was otherwise everything we wanted. A fair sized front and back yard, great layout and updated on the inside. The sellers and their agent staged it for a major bidding war. We offered $40K over asking but got outbidded by someone who offered $95K no subjects. People are crazy!! We thought Chester really was the one and we were both crushed. Surprisingly however we recovered quite quickly.

Recently we looked at 2 houses. We put a bid on one of them, over asking, but not by a lot. We figured we would put in a bid and if we got it, it would be like winning the lottery. We didn't win the lottery. I figure these were like 'flings'. We had fun with them, could have been serious with one, but that one was just too high level for us! Snobby bastard! =)

I guess upon reflecting on this whole process what I really am wanting is to have a place that Tuboo and I can choose to buy together and work on decorating and making our long term home. We own our condo now (thank god for that) but he initially bought it and decorated it etc. etc. I also want a home where the dogs can run around on grass and be happy instead of playing around on our concrete patio. I want to be able to have our family and friends come over to our place for bbq's, birthdays and for christmas without feeling claustrophobic. Hope for luck!