House Hunting

I never thought I would Own a house. I know the first step is to buy one. But really? I thought I would be renting for the rest of my life in NYC. Crazy how things change. 

When I left NYC in 2008, the year before I would have never thought I would have moved or ended up in Portland Or. NEVER. I still can't wrap my heard around it. 

But the time has come for me and my partner to buy a house. And so it has begun. 

First let me say, when I thought about buying a house, I thought it would happen like this. 
We get approved for the loan, AWESOME, then we find a house. DONE. then we say we want it and they hand over the keys!!!! UM NO! This is not how it goes. ANd there is no picture of you holding that white thing with the sold side on your front lawn laughing like this was the easiest thing you have ever done. NOTE TO SELF I will take that picture! 

So - first thing- get a realtor. DONE - 
Second - Basically be on Zillow EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE! 

Yes I have to admit, this part was fun - AT FIRST - but after about 2 months of looking at houses, I was thinking, they all look the same. Honestly I don't care where we live as long as we have a back yard. A big one. 

So the first house we went to see, I fell in love with it. I did. I still want that house. Only really because of the HUGE yard and the sun room. I would live in that sun room. I didn't care about any other part of the house. Which this is bad, because honestly, the master bedroom didn't have a closet and the bathroom was the size of a closet and the shower, only 1 person could fit in it. Ok....So I got wrapped up in the let just get this over with sort of thing. 

At this point, we weren't approved for a loan yet, so we were on the phone for like an hour to get approved. Which we were. I knew we would be. But then, reality set in. It was 20 more minutes to my commute. It wasn't near anyone - Anetra didn't like that. And I really needed a closet. BUT I always see the good. Who cares about the master bedroom, in a few years we will just extend the house and make it bigger. Thats how I think. So really any house I go and see, I think yeah I can do this and we can change this and that, because honestly nothing we find is goung to be perfect. It really just isn't. 

SO - now that you know that. Let the fun (NOT REALLY) begin. 

1 day we see I think 3 different house. All Fail! This one house, had 3 rabbit, 2 goats and like 10 chickens. Ok only 5 chickens. But come on now. But their veggies garden in the front is what sold me. but the house, I didn't like. 

Another House we went too, I walked in and said right away NO. I could feel it. I wanted to walk back out, but made myself walk through it anyways. And of course my head was like ok this is doable isn't it. But my gut kept answering NO, this isn't it. Nope we need to leave, NEXT!

so the next one. WE BOTH LOVED! We came back to see it 4 times! 4!!!! ok maybe I only saw it 3 times, but Anetra saw it 4 times. we were set on it. we were. We offered, and the seller, wanted way to much money for the area. and we didn't have a yard at all. like at all. WE countered back and forth a few times and he was just a dick. And then we decided to just walk away. 

WE WALKED AWAY after getting emotionally involved in it. I was heart broken. This is when it started to not get fun at all. How can you not day dream about your life in the house before you buy it. I mean come one, I have to see us living there, having people over, walking around naked. hee hee. But I can't not. This is house number 2 that I fell for and can't have. What the point of looking at Zillow getting their updates everyday of new house and then wanted to look but think, dont get attached. And how do you not get attached. I mean come on! 

So - we see more, and boy this one, the ground was so uneven I was actually falling into walls, and felt drunk. There was no way Kai could walk in there. But It was a cool layout. lol. ( I told you lol) but it was a hard core NO. Our realtor even said oh hell no. Not like that, but in his alter ego he would have said that. I just know he would. 

Then we see a few more, one a cop was living in, and we were being taped and hear the whole time. Freaking. I didn't like that. And then we kind of gave up. 

On a Sunday we were headed to the grocery store and decided to just drive around and look at the outsides of houses. It was fun imagining the scary and awesome things people could have behind their doors. We found a few open houses. one was SCARY, the other one, we loved. yes we loved. Had Joe come that night to check everything out, we walked through it again, talked about it. I was not excited at all though. I loved it, but it was a stay away from me arms length, and don't smile at me at all love. Because the reality was, i'm sure something will happen. 

So we put an offer on it, we counted a few times, finally decide on a price. I know i'm writing it as it happened so smoothly. But really it was this. 

We put the offer in. an hour later....." you hear from Joe yet" . "nope" dang it. another hour later....."anything"......"nope". PISS!

then we hear back. ACCEPTED! AWESOME, so what do we do. we spend 3 hours at home depot picking out paint for the whole house! of course I did research on what colors represent and how they make you feel, fungschai.  (how ever you spell it) yes I said 3 hours. 

So now, we make an apt with loan officer to sign 50 pages. YES IT WAS 50 PAGES!. Um, my brain couldn't handle everything she was explaining. It was way over my head and for me, to understand something I need to know all sides of it. so I looked at Anetra and said you got this? because I don't. 

So we continue signing papers, printing out bank accounts, making sure the Ernest money isn't drug money. OH COME ON! this process SUCKS! makes you not want to buy a house. It's stressful and just plain sucks! I mean it, stress upon stress and sucks!

So- next step - Inspection time. YEAH! finally moving forward. I mean we picked out the paint, I just want to paint already. 

We get the report back, and oh boy. I'm overwhelmed and start crying. yes, I'm crying now. Its to much, we had one day to really look at it, and go over it. we have only about another week before we loose the rate that we are locked in at. We still have to get an appraisal done. And we might not even get the house now. ONLY BECAUSE SELLER DOESN'T WANT TO FIX THINGS THAT NEED TO BE FIXED. COME ONE NOW! it's Structural. We aren't going to buy the house until you get someone to look at this shit. Yes I'm cussing now, because seller just wants to sell and make money and be done. WE just want to buy and make sure we don't have to put in ANOTHER $22,000.00 Just because you don't want to make sure the roof over was done right, or the chimney that came back DEFECTIVE on the report, is safe for us to move in. PISS OFF! 

ok...so that is where we are now, we tell them what they need to fix, and he will say yeah or no. So he comes back with NO, I'm only going to fix the shit we were going to fix anyways. and nothing that we really want. So we counter again, and say no we want this done, or we are done. And then we will back out. 

What does this mean? WE HAVE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN! 

I told my mom and Anetra. I'm done looking for houses. You two do it. I need a break. I now have to get over another heart break where we bought sample paint for. 

and I wasn't excited - but I was - but i'm not. Because I some how knew this was going to happen. 

Here we go - living out of boxes again. 

I'll do another update when the next step happens. .