It’s 2010. And We’re Buying A House.

I’ve been hesitant to talk too much about our house buying adventures thus far, lest I should jinx us and end up still renting and full of longing for a little place to call our own, but the part of me clamoring to share the process might officially be winning out. I figure I’m not much of a believer in jinxes anyway and what will come will come regardless, so I might as well spill the beans if my little heart so desires. So here goes.

Somewhere around Thanksgiving we started mulling over the possibility of shopping for a house. This was not in our original plan. When we moved into the home we currently rent last March, we signed a two-year lease and intended to stay here happily that whole time. And truthfully, we are happy here. We rent a lakefront home with four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a huge kitchen, an amazing back yard, and lake views that go for days. There is absolutely nothing not to love about this place. With the exception, that is, of the rather large chunk of money we’re throwing out the window in rent every month. Long story short, when we started evaluating current real estate prices combined with incredibly low interest rates and the extension of the appealing first-time home buyer tax credit, we decided it would be silly not to at least see what was out there in our price range in our area.

Almost immediately we found a place we adored. It was a fully renovated home built in 1910 with deeded lake rights, original hardwood floors, a wood-burning fireplace, an incredibly deep and private backyard and all of the charm I was after. We viewed it two times in a three-day span and almost as quickly as we had decided we’d like to put in an offer, the sellers had received and accepted another offer. We were bummed, but by that time we had decided that home ownership seemed like a decent option for us so we decided to push on. Over the next couple of weeks I spent hours scouring local listings and then I emailed our agent with a list of properties we wanted to see. The morning after Mike’s surprise birthday party, we met up with our agent and viewed another five or six properties. Some we liked, some we hated, one we loved.

Over the course of the next week, I thought long and hard about that one house we loved. Like my formerly enthusiastic self in the beginning days of architecture school, I busted out a sketchpad and started blocking out ideas. We made arrangements to see it again the following weekend. Then, somewhere along the way late that week, I started to stress out. The house was adorable and it felt perfect for our lifestyle and the layout and style felt like “me”, something that came to feel really important for the girl who has spent her entire life obsessed with buildings and interiors and design of all mediums. But. The yard was tiny. And it wasn’t even close to private. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure the only reason the house was still on the market was because of the yard. So the architecture-obsessed part of my brain started fighting with the MBA part of my brain, the part that knew the house probably wasn’t a good investment from a practicality standpoint and I started researching the neighborhood more so I could get better feel for where we’d be buying and what the long term appreciation potential seemed to be for the area.

Armed with that research, we showed up for our appointment that weekend with my father in tow. (My father is an environmental engineer and he spent years as a contractor so he’s the best resource for quickly identifying issues or putting fears at ease with his wealth of knowledge.) Before heading over, we stopped at another house around the corner, a house I had decided to view essentially just to get a feel for comparable properties in the area. It needed more work cosmetically, but it was 150 square feet larger and had a yard to die for. Tree-lined, fully fenced and boasting a heated inground pool. Oh and it was $13,000 more expensive than the house we loved and a whopping $30,000 more than the first house we loved and lost to another offer. So there was no way in hell I thought we’d end up wanting that house. Especially considering the kitchen, which is dated and laid out poorly so there’s virtually no workspace despite decent square footage and therefore really isn’t cooking-enthusiast friendly.

So, naturally, we view that house (and I might have even wrinkled my nose in disgust over the kitchen and the cigarette smoke stench that seemed to waft up out from every surface) and then head over to the other place we’d seen before and already loved….and as soon as I saw the yard again I knew it was over. There was just no way we could buy that house with it’s tiny little yard overlooked by no fewer than four other houses. It just wasn’t going to happen. And, all of a sudden, standing in the house I loved overlooking the yard I loathed, I knew I was going to do something I never imagined myself doing – I was going to buy a house for a yard and compromise a kitchen for a pool. Incredible. I never dreamed it would happen, but all of a sudden I knew it was going to be how it played out.

After a few days of crunching numbers, we decided to see the house with the pool (and the cigarette smell) again on December 23rd, Mike’s 30th birthday. We wrote an offer that night, a fairly aggressive offer that I felt was fair given comps in the area, $15,000 below asking price. They counter-offered the next morning, Christmas Eve, at $6,000 below asking price. We thought it was still too high, but agreed that $10,000 below asking seemed fair. We didn’t respond for two days and then after the holiday we countered at $10,000 below asking. They wouldn’t budge. And for a minute, we thought we were going to walk away. Then about thirty minutes later, I started to panic. Was I really going to let someone else buy “our” house over $4000? Because, see, I had already spent days sketching and researching and dreaming about colors and I already knew how I was going to fix the kitchen (shit, I even had the project broken up into two phases – phase I being a short term fix and phase II being a complete renovation after we’d been there a year or two) and I already had plans for a first anniversary party by the pool, damnit, and I was not going to let someone else buy “our” house.

So last Monday morning we did what any self-respecting would-be home buyers would do and called up the mortgage lender we were working with to discuss monthly payments for this hypothetical new price, $23,000 above what we thought we’d pay for the first house we’d loved and wanted to put an offer on. The difference between what we wanted to pay and what the seller wanted us to pay amounted to about $20 a month. And furthermore, that payment was estimated at $114 a month less than what we currently pay in rent. So after a week of haggling, we called right up and accepted the seller’s offer of $6000 below asking and called it a day. Then I freaked out, had a nervous breakdown that lasted about 39 seconds at my desk and then got really really excited.

This week, the lawyers will receive the contract signed by both parties, my dad will conduct our home inspection on Tuesday and then we’ll follow up mid-week with the official mortgage application. Provided all of those hurdles are smoothly navigated, we’ll essentially be in the clear. Barring any complications, our tentative closing is scheduled for February 15, a date that seems impossibly soon. To think that we might actually own a house a month and a half from now is really incredibly unreal to me. We’re excited, nervous, anxious and overall feeling incredibly ready to take this next step. If I’m honest, in some ways buying a house is proving more of an emotional journey for me than getting married. Maybe it’s because at this stage in the game it is still possible for someone to say “no” for one reason or another even though we want it so very much and it’s scary how emotionally invested I already feel. A large part of me still expects something to happen to prevent things from working out…I’m not entirely accustomed to things working out the way I plan for them, too, so it’s likely to be a first if this goes smoothly. So fingers crossed.

I’ll be posting regularly from this point forward and, provided all goes as planned, I can see A Year of Marriage evolving into a bit of a home renovation blog. Hopefully it doesn’t bore anyone too much. In the meantime, here’s a glimpse of the kitchen I can’t wait to demo. Please note the brick “cooking arch” with curiously applied wood molding, yellow countertops and outdated cabinetry. Like I said, it’s a thing of beauty.

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