falling in love
ESC: I’m actually NERVOUS about going to look at this house. I’m afraid I’ll like it too much. I don’t want to fall in love with a house right now.
Kev: well, it’s OK to have DREAMS!
ESC: yeah, but our DREAM is to buy a house. NOT to buy a specific house. The only thing we have going for ourselves is that we don’t have to buy a specific house. We can’t afford to get too attached to one house, because we don’t want to get our hearts broken over not geeting it.
Kev: Thanks Dr Phil
******
So we’re SORT OF looking at houses. Sort of. Because there’s a lot of “ifs” that have to fall into place in certain order before house buying could commence. In the meantime, we are torturing ourselves by driving around the east side of atlanta looking at homes, and falling in and OUT of love with them.
The process goes like this:
1. check out ad.
2. fall in love with pictures and price
3. drive to house to trespass
4. love house, until…
5. find obvious and horrible fatal flaw
The fatal flaw can be anything from “kitchen too small” to “why are all these weird holes in the back yard” to “will flood if it ever rains again.”
It’s been very exasperating.
Kevin will fall in love with a house without letting things like “teeny tiny kitchen” get in the way, because we can just knock down some walls and turn the garage into a bigger kitchen, dining room, laundry area!
Then my big, pessimist eeyore brain rears up and worries that it’s going to be hard enough to get approved for a mortgage in this economy, we’re NEVER going to be able to get a loan for something like that right away!
Then I fall in love with a house that just happens to have a little itty bitty creek running through the back of the property, and then creepy old neighbor lady announces to us that several properties around had been bought back by the county because they were on a flood plain. And Kev is OUT. Because he’s afraid of a little flooding. PFT!
This is fun. If you are selling a house in our limited price range that DOESN’T have some glaring, terrifying flaw, and isn’t in some god-awful area of town (Cobb country, I’m looking at YOU!) please let me know. Because they seem to be a rarity around here. Please…it may save our marriage!
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grace (54 comments)
Knit Witch (31 comments)
Jane (20 comments)
Well, if you are looking north of Atlanta, there’s a house on my street for sale.
Of course, that might be a little more “north” than you were thinking.
This is why you should move to Birmingham. Just saying.
Having now been the buyer of “a home” FIVE TIMES before I turned 40… what they say about location is true. Use your life demographic to your advantage… expect you WON”T keep it more than 3 years, plan to fix it and flip it, and buy, buy, buy in a low-priced, yet-to-be-discovered neighborhood where Teh Gays are buying…. a nice, artsy neighborhood where prices are cheap but you’ll love your funky neighbors and the scene. Buy it, fix it, flip it. Or, look at forclosures. Especially in resort areas.
And this is all perfectly sound advice… unless you are “nesting”, m’dear. LOL.
OH, yeah, and the smartest person I ever knew in house buying? The advice she gave me was “it’s an endurance test. Most people break after 10-20 houses visited. That’s just warming up, getting a feel.. if you really want to know your market, don’t even think of making an offer until you’ve seen a solid 80.”
Awesome!!! Looking for houses is so fun!!! Be sure to check out Tucker - the prices are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than Decatur and it’s only 10 minutes out of Decatur! Very close and convenient to everything.
I second Tucker! In fact, if you want to wait another year and half or so you can buy my house… A good realtor who knows the area can be a huge help too. There were houses we walked into and our realtors were immediately like, “NO. You are NOT buying this house.” And they were always right, which saved us a lot of time.