Yet Another House Post

These days I have a one-track mind: it's all about the house hunt. I spend my days looking at houses, thinking about houses, and at night, I dream about houses. I'm so obsessed that my obsession has spread to my own family and to my in-laws. We all talk houses day and night. (Well, okay, my siblings are not so interested.) But unless you want to talk about real estate, I got nothing to say.

I'm also turning into a little house whore. Every week I fall in love with a new house. I suppose this is more encouraging than if there were no houses that I liked. A few days ago I said that I was in love with this one house. Well, after visiting it three more times and nearly making an offer, we finally decided that it was too small and would take too much work. And, while some people enjoy the home improvement process, I am the sort of stress case that would hate it.

Today my broker sent me another listing, and I went to go see it with my mom this afternoon while my husband was at work. I LOVED it. My mother loved it. I would love to own it. Here's the catch: it's reachable only by narrow and windy roads. Hard to get to work, and, as my mother pointed out, will be difficult and possibly dangerous when we have children and have to chauffeur them around constantly. Also possibly difficult for people who come to visit us.

Argh. I want this house. If it had been easier to get to, we probably would have made an offer tomorrow. My broker leaves for vacation later this week and comes back in a week and a half. I guess I'll think about it until she gets back. I gotta say, I've fallen hard. But I guess I said that last week too.

Could This Be Love?

I've been sick for the last week or so. Today is the first day I've felt like myself. It's a great feeling. But again, humbling to realize how much of your personality is closely tied to physical elements beyond your control.

At least part of the reason I've been sick is because I've been so stressed out. No matter how much I tell myself to just let God do His thing, I keep wanting to be in control of the situation, and to hurry up the resolutions of all the uncertainties that currently fill my life. For the last few days, I've stayed up at nights thinking about the house hunt. Looking for a house is like being in back junior high: you fall in love over and over again, only to keep getting your heart broken. And then there's the fear. What if something actually does work out? What if, by some miracle, we like a house and it likes us back? Then we're stuck, committed. The big "C" word. I'm a real commitment-phobe. I want a house, I want a house bad, but the COMMITMENT. Shudder.

Yesterday I saw a house with my broker. I didn't love the house, but I loved the neighborhood. One street over from where a friend lives. Beautiful trees, quiet streets. The house itself was okay, although on the small side. But everything else makes up for that. I fear I may have it badly this time. This may be the real thing, not just a crush. I have it so badly that it's time for the house to meet the parents. We're all going to go look at it this weekend. I don't know if I'm hoping for it to go well or not. If my parents don't like it, I'll have escaped making a BIG COMMITMENT. At the same time, though, I may miss out on "the one."

Nesting Instincts

The house hunt continues, but proves to be difficult, time-consuming, and, at times, heartbreaking. Housing prices have fallen all over the country, but not so much in the Bay Area, where crazy people continue to bid up prices. The crazy-people factor is compounded by the paucity of available houses. Most of the houses that are on the market now are not ones that we would seriously consider.

Except for one. It was a beautiful house. The master bedroom was enormous, with a huge walk-in closet and another large regular closet. (For a total of TWO closets! Two!) The master bath was similarly large, with a beautiful tub, and was connected to a room that would make a perfect (hypothetical) baby's room. These two bedrooms and the bathroom formed the upstairs. Downstairs were three more bedrooms and two more bathrooms. The bathrooms were well-appointed; I can't stand ugly bathrooms. Oak floors, recessed lighting. The kitchen was the masterpiece: cherry-wood cabinets, granite counters, including a large island, and by itself was about the size of most of the other houses we've seen. To top it all off, it was, unbelievably, within our price range. (A stretch, but still...)

Of course, it sold before we even got close to making an offer. Heartbreaking. I doubt we will see another house like it within our price range. Our price range, which already puts us in the frightening position of mortgaging both of our futures, seems laughably small for the Bay Area, although our broker has been kind enough not to say this explicitly. For a gal with a hankering for a place to call home, it's almost enough to make a person move to Texas.