So by now it has become abundantly clear that my initiative to blog twice a week during lunch has fallen flat on its pudgy face. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you:
I’m buying a house!
The problem is: which house? And as anyone who dreams of real estate can tell you, this is less of a problem and more of an all-consuming obsession with perusing listings looking for The House. As in:
Wake up at 2 am and can’t fall back asleep? Might as well check to see if anything new has come on the market! Have a break in your workday? Wouldn’t want to miss that perfect 3 bed 2 bath bungalow in the heart of the Concordia neighborhood! Friday night with nothing to do? You can always pretend that money is no object and look at pictures of multi-million dollar houses!
As my coworker who just bought a house says: it’s a disease. Once you catch it, there is no cure. He STILL gets email alerts about new houses that go on the market and he moved into his ADORABLE Southeast Portland home months ago. (He says: “It’s not quite big enough and I wish it had a finished attic.”) He has no intentions of actually moving. He just needs to make sure he doesn’t miss The House.
Which of course doesn’t exist. Especially in my price range. There’s always something: “three” bedrooms turn out to be one legitimate habitable space and 2 additional rooms large enough for a Chihuahua’s bed. A “finished basement” looks more like a mausoleum. The kitchen is so small that the refrigerator is in the hallway. The really cool attic build-out proves to be structurally unsound.
Or, worse, the house is absolutely perfect but the location sucks, or the yard is too small, or the furnace is so old that its brand name has “o-Matic” in it — which would be OK if the plumbing weren’t original, the electrical not sketchy and the building permits on the brand-new extension not missing.
But I know I will find something. With any luck, I’ll find something AND close on it by the end of November and get that $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit.
And it will have a yard big enough for Calla to romp and my veggies to grow. The kitchen will not have a Viking range or dual ovens but I will love spending time in it anyway. The bathroom may have a blue toilet, but blue toilets are replaceable.
There will be compromises but I will find something that resembles The House. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check the listings…
9 responses so far ↓
1 Sylvia // Sep 15, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Good luck, Laura! There’s a place for you out there, or closer in, as it may be.
2 Sasha // Sep 15, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I can’t believe you’re really buying a house! Remember that episode of SATC when Carrie says, “Susan Sharon (I can’t believe I remember her name) had one of those apartments that made me feel like a high school friend who was a bad influence” (or something to that extent)? That’s how I feel reading about you buying a house. You’re a real grown up, I’m in awe!
3 mydogischelsea // Sep 16, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Sasha, the good news is that you know my house will be extremely cluttered and messy at all times. Therefore I will still be the high school friend who was a bad influence. (Though I hope I was not ACTUALLY a bad influence on you.)
4 michael5000 // Sep 16, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Can’t relate. I’ve checked into two houses for sale in my life, and I bought both of them. Average time spent real estate shopping: an hour or so.
5 mydogischelsea // Sep 16, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Yes, Michael, but you make up for it by doing things like re-reading every book in your house in alphabetical order.
6 jiffer // Sep 18, 2009 at 6:40 am
i have the same bug.
bijou naps i shop the neighborhoods for our perfect house
7 malahat sunset // Sep 18, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Be sure to tell your mom that you’re looking for a house in the neighborhood with the best public schools (or is that just a Manhattan thing?), or better yet, right across from a public school.
8 Rachel // Sep 20, 2009 at 1:50 pm
WOW!!!! I hadn’t read your blog for a while, but this is very exciting news. (”Dan” also said “Wow” when I read this aloud to him) I will keep my fingers crossed for you and Hanu already dreams of the day he can run around with Calla in your backyard and possibly find a way to sneak into your garden.
9 malahat sunset // Sep 24, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I was just wondering, MDIC, if you could pick up your pudgy-faced initiative-to-blog-twice-a-week and tell us some bloggy-type stories about house-hunting in Portland, OR?
Here we are now, entertain us!
Thank you.
Seriously, good luck with finding a house, and enjoy the search!