So, in my last few posts, I implied that we were through with home ownership. We no longer wanted to own a home and all the upkeep. Renters for life! Oh, the freedom!! Do you see where this is going? It turns out when the Universe and powers that be hear the word “ never” they take that as a challenge. “Oh really?” they say. “Things are about to get very interesting.”
And so it began, in my mother’s driveway, after picking up our fluff monster after a weekend away, we began talking about houses. It was casual at first. We just did a quick little search after bemoaning what we were paying in rent. We began looking early to mid April. Then, I was obsessively checking Zillow and Redfin, sometimes hourly. The area we were searching was pretty hot or at least in our desired size and price range. I wanted smaller. He wanted newer or at least updated a bit more than our last home. The boy wanted hardwood floors and a yard- any yard, any size. We looked at quite a few (for us, anyhow.) It wasn’t fun. Some of the houses were seriously overpriced for their size and condition. We felt that we were going to have to settle for something we didn’t love, but didn’t loathe.
After about a month of searching, we went to look at one house. It was liveable, but high enough that any updating would have been hard and slow. We were even planning on placing an offer on it until we went into the basement and really looked. At that point, I just wanted it to be finished. I was tired of looking. We decided to wait a bit longer. We had several months on our lease, so it wasn’t dire, but it was still a disappointment. A few days later we went to look at a house on a whim that didn’t have interior photos even posted. It was with the understanding that we probably wouldn’t even like it, but we were committed to looking at pretty much everything in our price/ size range. Surprisingly, we really liked it. It checked off many of our really want boxes (small, no carpet, some updates, price.) After we left, we called the agent back within 5 minutes to place an offer.
So, that brings us to this: we are homeowners again. We have a yard and appliances and plumbing to upkeep. We also have ceilings not being stomped on by the people upstairs and a monthly payment that doesn’t make me itchy. This is our 3rd house to buy and it is the smallest and the least expensive. We are going down 625 square feet from house to house, so our next home will actually be a tiny home. I think this one just qualifies as “small.” I think it suits us well. We have 860 square feet to make ours again. We have plans. There will be befores and afters and new memories. Here we go again.