Friends, we bought a house. But before we bought a house, we looked at houses. And to better understand the horror of house hunting in this economic climate, some back story is in order.
When the mister and I first married, we lived in his charming, vintage condo in the city. By charming, I mean ‘charming’, what with the one little bathroom, and the tiny kitchen, but it also had a huge, formal dining room, exposed brick, a lovely curved wall of windows in the living room, and a pantry as large as the kitchen itself. It was a compromise, but a balanced one. And so we settled in there, made a life there, and were happy, but we outgrew it as a couple, and needed to move. That was in 2004/5.
The first time we put it on the market and started scouting for a bigger house in the suburbs, one of my inlaws was diagnosed with cancer. Since they lived 20 minutes from us in the city, it seemed an inopportune time to move an hour away. We stopped looking, and stayed.
The second time we put it on the market, 18 months later, we found an expansive vintage bungalow in a town far from the city but with easy train access to downtown. Unfortunately, our realtor turned out to be crazypants, and after she talked our buyers out of buying our apartment (during their inspection, no less), we were unable to make an offer on the house, and we fired her. Then, we were so demoralized by the experience that we stayed put awhile longer.
Then the market started to tank, and home ownership started to falter, and we saw that as a sign that we should jump back in and buy a house. I am addicted to real estate, and the internet is my inabler, and I found a sweet little red brick bungalow in a town by the lake, a town my husband has always wanted to live in, and it was priced to sell as a short sale. This was right at the start of the foreclosure crisis, and short sales were very uncommon.
People, we inspected, we offered, we wrote an earnest money cheque, and then … nothing. We waited for months, as closing date after closing date came and went, until finally we gave up. The bank was so swamped with preforeclosure mortgage failures that they didn’t have the time to close this house with us, and we ended up having to walk away. We gave up.
Then, in 2008, we found out we were going to be parents …. of twins! Cue the house hunt. But just as we started gearing up to look seriously, my downstairs neighbour, in a fit of pique that he was not being viewed by all as the center of the universe, set fire to our building as a way of attracting a little attention to himself. No, really. It wasn’t even an insurance fire, as it turns out he had no insurance. Just a little ‘pay attention to me’ that cost us a fortune and amped our general anxiety levels up permanently to alert, and more importantly, meant we couldn’t sell our place and move, because googling our address brought up the fire. You know what prospective buyers don’t like? Fire.
But I never stopped looking at real estate, and I spent hours on Redfin, and I started seeing houses in towns we loved but could not afford suddenly pop up as affordable, mostly estate sales and foreclosures. And one day, I saw this in my MLS feed, and I was hooked.
It all started with this.
A beautiful old farmhouse, with all of the original wood trim. That is handcarved, a little piece between the living and dining room, and there was just so much of it, in every room. And yes, it was an estate sale, and yes, the detached sunporch was filled with bees, and yes, the basement was too low to ever be finished, and yes, it had flaws, but I had high hopes for this little farmhouse, and what I could do with it.
Hopes that were immediately dashed once we went inside.
(more tomorrow).