Rinse, Lather, Despair

[akirlu]

Perhaps the most wearing, and wearying, aspect of househunting is the cycle of hope, disappointment, and having to start all over again.

So, we made an offer on the house. The sellers made a counter -- too high for the area, we thought. We pondered our finances and the alternatives and decided to make a counter to the counter offer. And then we waited for another response. Which came, last Tuesday. They sold the house to someone else. We were apparently being used as leverage against another bid, one we were never told was out there. Arguably, we were never in the running at all, unless we were willing to pay over market.

We were not willing to pay over market -- we can't swing the loan if the appraisal comes in under selling price, which it well might. So we wouldn't have bid much higher anyhow. Still it's disappointing.

It's not as disappointing as it could be, because disappointment appears to be the primary feature of the househunting process, and so I've gotten a bit used to it. There's a larger pattern to it -- start with what you feel are modest goals, discover your error, recalibrate and diminish expectations, wrestle with trade-offs, decide you can live with the trade-offs, wait, hope, wait, and finally get the bad news. Then you recalibrate your expectations downwards, broaden your search criteria again, and start all over. Repeat when necessary.

Happily, just after I got the news I had a birthday lunch date with marykaykare who swept me off to the Salmon House in her jaunty new yellow convertible. There we had a grilled salmon lunch that couldn't be beat, enjoying the sunshine and the views across the water and a very nice chat. Just the thing for househunter's blues. Especially with the ginger spice birthday cupcake reserved for mid-afternoon dessert.

Later in the week, once Hal and I had pulled ourselves up off the emotional floor, we went out and looked at a couple of other houses in the same Kentish neighborhood. One shows very well -- it's been redone out from the studs, and the fit-and-finish is all good -- but it's tiny, and the space is laid out badly. Pity. The west-facing kitchen gets wonderful light, and the garden is well kept. But it's the sort of house that's ideal for the seller -- a single woman with not very much stuff. That would not be us. Wonderful light though. Still, crossed that off the list.

Now we're gearing up to maybe put in an offer on the other place we saw.

It is not the house of my dreams. It's post war, and very boxy, with a crying need for new paint, new kitchen linoleum, new appliances, and a ton of work on the garden. But because it's post war, it's built like a tank. And because it's boxy, every single major room on the main level has natural light on two sides. And because the garden has been allowed to do its own thing for years and years, it also has two mature apple trees and a mature pear, in among the dandelions. A person could do worse.

And whatever you say against it -- it's not very photogenic at the moment, for instance -- at least the house is not Yet Another Gottverdamter Mid-level Entry Ranch-style Rambler. Hates them, we does.

And, for a wonder, most everything about the house is original -- original scuffed and mellowed hardwood floors; weird, original metal-frame windows, original cedar lining on the linen closet, original weird, radiant heat furnace thingy. Yeah, okay, original is not always a plus.

In all, it's in an area we like, "well-priced" as the phrase goes, and a house we can live with. So we'll try again, put in an offer, and see what happens. What's the worst that could happen?

We repeat this cycle of diminished expectations until we wind up buying a cinderblock doghouse in Tacoma, that's what.

Comments

Re the Second House

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

I can understand.
I looked at a two bedroom for $21,000.
The outside looked like crap, BUT the inside?
O.M.G.!
New roof.
New Furnace.
Blown-in insulation.
Updated wiring.
Pantry.
Usable attic
Most important, it felt like a HOME rather then a house.
As if it had hosted families and had good bones going deep in the earth.
I'm guessing you know the difference.


shelleybear

Re: Re the Second House

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

A two-bedroom *house* for $21,000. Ah-ha-ha-HAH-ha-ha. *phew* Okay, I'm fine now. *giggle* *snort*

But, yeah, I think I know what you mean about good bones. I think the house we're offering on has good bones. Really solid stuff. And a bit of paint and fuss will spiff it up a lot, I think.

21k for a 2 bed, hee hee, is that per month?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

My house is a 3bed "duplex" (semi-detached) house in a west London suburb near the airport so it's nearly as cheap as you can find anywhere near London (there may be one or two other suburbs that are at the same sort of price, head five miles in and double the price)

My 3-bed cost me £100k when I bought it ten years ago, it would now cost something like £275,000 if I wanted to buy it now (and I wouldn't be able to afford it), so that's $550,000 (gulp!)

Re: 21k for a 2 bed, hee hee, is that per month?

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

My two-bedroom, two-bath 863sqft condo is worth $230K now and I bought it in 1991 for $80K.

Re: 21k for a 2 bed, hee hee, is that per month?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

There are definitely 3 bedroom places that would go for $550K near SeaTac, too, but the difference is that here there are *also* at least some 3 bedroom houses still available for under $300K, depending on how directly-under-the-flight-path you're willing to go, and how much you're willing to fix. One of the places we've largely not looked at all is directly under the approach to SeaTac, also not the corridor under the typical take-off pattern.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

The worst that can happen is you wait a year, going through this process, instead of being able to buy right away.

Took us nine months at the height of the Bay Area's housing boom, a total seller's market, and we got priced out of areas sometimes in less than a month.

We bought something too small for our stuff, but we love our house and it hasn't needed any fixing up. And San Bruno turns out to be a really neat little place to live.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Realistically, neither of us has the emotional stamina or grit to keep at this for very much longer. Certainly not for a whole year. I have other things to do with my life, I can't have my entire imaginative sensorium held hostage indefinitely, and yet I can't seem to do house-hunting on a part-time basis. It consumes me. I obsess. It's like having a new lover. Only the new lover keeps changing, and I keep having to re-negotiate what I want from him. But I think we've found someone we can settle down with. We should hear back by Wednesday, maybe even tomorrow.

Because we're ready to move on to the next stage.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

In the UK they reckon you need to put in an offer on five houses (on average) before you can complete on one. Certainly that was my experience (I actually had three accept my offer, two of them were waiting on a chain, and the chains didn't move for several months, so eventually I went up another 20k pounds (40,000 dollars) for a slightly better house that I moved into 28 days after first seeing it (and 27 days after putting in my first offer).

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm sincerely hoping not to emulate the UK pattern on offers versus acceptances, even if I am trying to buy a house in Kent.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

So, it seems we've beaten the UK ratio by a bit.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I have a book right here: Atomic Ranch: Design Ideas for Stylish Ranch Homes. I love real ranch houses.

I hope this new house works out for you.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I love real ranch houses.

You and athenais, man. And the editors of Sunset Magazine. Well, y'all can have my share of mid-century modern, that's all I'm sayin'. Right along with the orange plastic Eames chair and almost every American-made "Danish" modern buffet ever made. I discard them.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I'm not fond of the plastic chairs. And I don't expect to have a ranch house, but I love the single-story, lots of windows, open spaces feel of them.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

There are other ways to get single-story, lots of windows, and open spaces that do not involve building houses that burn down in 3 minutes flat, as classic Eichlers do. There are Craftsman bunglalows that are built on a single story with lots of windows and an open plan.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Oooh, bungalows...

Best of luck with all this.

Oh, and REAL hardwood floors can be sanded & refinished many times over the years. They're not thin veneers like you get from Pergo these days.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

The luck seems to have paid off at last.

Yes, real hardwoods can be sanded and refinished and that's a plus. But even better is not even needing to do that. I think I can live with the floors for a lot of years before I feel like they need anything. Other than the occasional swiffering, I mean.