It Finally Happened: We Bought A House! / A Quiet Thanksgiving
For a little over a year now, my wife, Nicole, and I have been house hunting with our realtor braving the weirdest housing market ever. Not only is the market still white-hot here in Portland, but it's unfazed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying economic situations including the rise in unemployment. We looked at houses all around the region (even outside the state) and over time had to make concessions and change what our true priorities were in the kind of house we wanted. For the money we were willing to spend, there just wasn't any availability. People with more money would swoop in and snag houses out from under all of us which would drive the market even higher. It's been an entire year of surprising discouragement, soul searching, second guessing everything, and the fatigue of waiting itself. We had actually resigned ourselves to waiting through another frustrating winter before perhaps more homes would appear on the market in the spring of 2021. We predicted it was to be another miserable four-to-six months in this stupid apartment.
But lo! That wait was not to be for a crazy thing happened. We actually finally succeeded at landing a house.
The story: Early this month, we went to see a house in a far-off metropolitan suburb between Portland and the state capital of Salem. A '70s-era home owned by an old lady who lived to 100 was up for sale. The house is a little bit run down but seemed in okay shape overall. It was a normal house for a fair price. It hit all our needs and it was even in a nice neighborhood. We had played this game before: Of getting attached to a house, putting in an offer, getting rejected because someone outbid us by $15,000, then feeling terrible and lost and angry for weeks. But by now, we're doing it for the experience as our realtor encouraged us to do. So we immediately put in an offer for just a touch above asking price. I even sat down to write the sellers a letter talking about who we were and what we planned on doing with the house. I've written these letters before to no avail but this time I felt strangely compelled to write a great letter. I wonder if it made a difference...
It might have because a day after we put in the offer, our realtor called us with the shocking news: They'd accepted our offer and our long struggle to find a place to live was coming to a close. We'd done it. We'd persevered through the difficult campaign of house hunting. We found a house we liked and now we set about the task of making it ours. The process of buying a house is weird. It's been a constant back-and-forth between our realtor, the seller, the escrow bank, and our mortgage broker. So many documents to sign and so many things to think about. Our heads have been abuzz for weeks with plans and daydreams and also new kinds of worries.
The inspection went great. There were only a few problems overall and even the inspector was surprised there wasn't more issues. The woman who lived here appears to have not really done much to the house and it shows. Everything is original and slightly worn. The only thing that's truly concerning us at the moment is that the whole house has textured "popcorn" ceiling which is a red flag for asbestos. We had a guy in to test it a week and a half ago and we should get the results any day now. Obviously we've praying it's not asbestos because if it is, we'll likely have to hire help to remove it which could be ten thousand dollars or more.
We close on the house on December 4th and Nicole's parents have asked to come help us the next week. While the house is empty, we want to paint all the interior walls and install laminate flooring throughout the whole house. We believe we can do those things ourselves with Nicole's parents and to make sure we'll have the time to do it, I'm taking four weeks off from my job in December. We'll also need time to move and if we do need asbestos mitigation, we'll have to plan time for that. The goal is to be totally moved in and settled by Christmas so we can break the lease on our apartment and begin a whole new crazy chapter of our lives! I get to polish off the "Home Improvement" journal entry tag for the first time in nearly ten years!!
There's so many things to do and to think about. It's kind of overwhelming!
Thanksgiving was a casualty of everything that's happened. Our original plan for the holiday was to drive down to central California be with Nicole's parents for the second Thanksgiving in a row. We even bought tire chains for my car just in case the roads were iced over like last year. But because we landed this house and that Nicole's parents want to be here during December, we figured we'd cancel Thanksgiving and just continue to focus on the house and getting ready ourselves. It's been a nice and quiet long weekend before the insane craziness that awaits us later this week. We even cancelled Christmas itself: We've told people that to save money and stress, we're not gift-giving this year and wish nothing in return as the biggest gift of all, the house itself, will be gift enough. It's funny not to even participate in some kind of Black Friday lusting for hot items. Ohh well. Perhaps next year...
I can't believe this is finally happening. I don't think it'll truly set in for us until January when we're comfortably settled and the true weight of home ownership begins to press upon us. I'm both simultaneously looking forward to it and am nervous of it.
But lo! That wait was not to be for a crazy thing happened. We actually finally succeeded at landing a house.
The story: Early this month, we went to see a house in a far-off metropolitan suburb between Portland and the state capital of Salem. A '70s-era home owned by an old lady who lived to 100 was up for sale. The house is a little bit run down but seemed in okay shape overall. It was a normal house for a fair price. It hit all our needs and it was even in a nice neighborhood. We had played this game before: Of getting attached to a house, putting in an offer, getting rejected because someone outbid us by $15,000, then feeling terrible and lost and angry for weeks. But by now, we're doing it for the experience as our realtor encouraged us to do. So we immediately put in an offer for just a touch above asking price. I even sat down to write the sellers a letter talking about who we were and what we planned on doing with the house. I've written these letters before to no avail but this time I felt strangely compelled to write a great letter. I wonder if it made a difference...
It might have because a day after we put in the offer, our realtor called us with the shocking news: They'd accepted our offer and our long struggle to find a place to live was coming to a close. We'd done it. We'd persevered through the difficult campaign of house hunting. We found a house we liked and now we set about the task of making it ours. The process of buying a house is weird. It's been a constant back-and-forth between our realtor, the seller, the escrow bank, and our mortgage broker. So many documents to sign and so many things to think about. Our heads have been abuzz for weeks with plans and daydreams and also new kinds of worries.
The inspection went great. There were only a few problems overall and even the inspector was surprised there wasn't more issues. The woman who lived here appears to have not really done much to the house and it shows. Everything is original and slightly worn. The only thing that's truly concerning us at the moment is that the whole house has textured "popcorn" ceiling which is a red flag for asbestos. We had a guy in to test it a week and a half ago and we should get the results any day now. Obviously we've praying it's not asbestos because if it is, we'll likely have to hire help to remove it which could be ten thousand dollars or more.
We close on the house on December 4th and Nicole's parents have asked to come help us the next week. While the house is empty, we want to paint all the interior walls and install laminate flooring throughout the whole house. We believe we can do those things ourselves with Nicole's parents and to make sure we'll have the time to do it, I'm taking four weeks off from my job in December. We'll also need time to move and if we do need asbestos mitigation, we'll have to plan time for that. The goal is to be totally moved in and settled by Christmas so we can break the lease on our apartment and begin a whole new crazy chapter of our lives! I get to polish off the "Home Improvement" journal entry tag for the first time in nearly ten years!!
There's so many things to do and to think about. It's kind of overwhelming!
Thanksgiving was a casualty of everything that's happened. Our original plan for the holiday was to drive down to central California be with Nicole's parents for the second Thanksgiving in a row. We even bought tire chains for my car just in case the roads were iced over like last year. But because we landed this house and that Nicole's parents want to be here during December, we figured we'd cancel Thanksgiving and just continue to focus on the house and getting ready ourselves. It's been a nice and quiet long weekend before the insane craziness that awaits us later this week. We even cancelled Christmas itself: We've told people that to save money and stress, we're not gift-giving this year and wish nothing in return as the biggest gift of all, the house itself, will be gift enough. It's funny not to even participate in some kind of Black Friday lusting for hot items. Ohh well. Perhaps next year...
I can't believe this is finally happening. I don't think it'll truly set in for us until January when we're comfortably settled and the true weight of home ownership begins to press upon us. I'm both simultaneously looking forward to it and am nervous of it.