Kristi and I found a house this weekend. We’re putting in an offer today, and of course, this is the part where things start getting interesting.
Kristi had been searching for places online for several months, and we’d been out a few times to look at property. This house is the ninth one we viewed, and we looked at an additional 3 more afterward, as we were mulling things over.
It has always occurred to me that house hunting is a little strange. I’ve done this several times in the past, and no matter what the price point is, it always seems like there are dumps, run-of-the-mill places, and steals. All other things being equal, house prices gravitate to what the market will bear, so you end up being able to see “the best of” a class of houses lower than your price point, “the worst of” a class of houses above your price point, and then a bunch of “meh”.
Generally speaking, if you can deal with whatever is wrong with those “worst of” places, you can get a really nice piece of property cheaper than your neighbors, which is a good feeling.
This is no better exemplified by the three houses that ended up being the comparison points for our decision.
House #1 was, simply, in perfect condition. The grounds were manicured, the inside was grand and oversized. The master bedroom suite was insane. The layout was awesome. The flow was awesome. 3-car garage, all 3 with openers, a boat parked on a trailer inside the garage. I mean, seriously. It was a turnkey operation. Put in your stuff, and live. The problem? The yard was a postage stamp. On a hill. With a swampy wetland in it. Oh, and it’s on a busy street, one block from a highway. Great for commute, not so much for kids playing in the driveway.
House #2 was in a neighborhood that makes you want to weep for joy. You came up a winding, forested road, turned onto a road lined on both sides with horse pastures, and then down a private drive that ended in the circular driveway. From the upper-floor deck, there was a commanding view of the property (and apparently all the way to The Space Needle, on a clear day), and the massive and flat property already had a huge workshop on it (the previous tenants rented the space out to people to store their boats in it; there were three in there when we saw it). The kitchen had been updated and sat in a very usable dining/living space. The yard screamed “potential”, and the neighborhood was grand. The rest of the house did need some help, though. There were no doors to the backyard. There were no windows in any of the bathrooms, and these all felt dark, close, and dated. There were several strange choices made, and some of the house felt “thrown together”. All of this was fine until we got to the really creepy part; the living/entertaining space was all on the upper floor, with the sleeping quarters on the lower floor, and the front door led right into that lower level. Yes, there were stairs up right away. And I understand why it was done; the upper floor was light and bright. But who wants people to walk into their house and see the bedrooms right away? *shudder* The front door would have to be moved, and the stairs as well, in order to make the house flow work better. In short, the house needs to be converted into a split-level. That’s a big project.
House #3 was sitting on a gigantic lot overlooking a ravine. The owners had built a little breakfast bar on the back porch, so they could eat outside, overlooking the ravine. The whole place had a “cabin in the woods” feeling. There were 2 mature apple trees in the yard, a two-story detached artist studio, and a “tree house” for the kids that included a skylight and a stained-glass window. The bedrooms had glass doorknobs. The problem? The house was built in 1942, and needed serious updating, to the tune of gutting the whole lower floor. And the garage was falling apart. The whole place was going to turn into one project after another. The life that we have been living would not be possible for several years. Much time and treasure would go into reconfiguring the house.
So there you go, the top 3 choices:
1) Perfect house, tiny yard, busy street
2) Great neighborhood, great yard, house needs modification
3) Really nice yard, house needs major work
So which one would you choose?
I don’t think it matters what the price point is, because if you put the “perfect” house on either of the other pieces of property, they’d be safely out of the price range. And if the price range was higher, you’d have the same thing — just higher expectations.
We have run the gamut of emotions during this process, from high to low, “we’ll never find anything” to “this place is perfect” to “this place sucks and I want out” to “this would be a great place because of..” and back. And the exciting prospects of a long closing period look daunting from this end.
I just hope that the place can be turned from a house into a home for my little family.
There is no perfect. Just affordable. And livable.