Yesterday started with our signing and faxing back the cancellation paperwork for the deal on the Birch Street house. Seeing "our" house reappear in the online real-estate listings, with its status changed from "Pending Sale" back to "Active", was painful. I think that we'd both gotten far too ahead of ourselves in mentally furnishing the house and imagining what it would be like to live there.
Later in the day, we got out to look at some houses. First we walked through some houses in Santa Ana -- older homes that were basically okay, had they been selling at a price that would have allowed for updating/repairs after purchase. In one house, we opened a closed bedroom door and were assaulted by a WALL OF STINK, a sudden blast of dead-body-in-the-closet repulsion. Any would-be buyer for that house could look forward to spending an additional $580,000 in room deodorizers just to get the house to the point where they could use all of its rooms.
Next, we drove up to Anaheim, where we looked at another house that met all of our requirements -- the right size, the right price, cute, historical, in a better neighborhood than the Birch Street house. Seeing such a promising house right after cancelling our initial deal and then spending the rest of the day touring smelly dingy cavelike $599K mouldering heaps lifted my spirits, and I felt pretty good for the rest of the day.
This morning, our agent called at 9:30 AM to tell us that the Anaheim house was off the market. The owners received their first offer yesterday evening (as we walked through their house with our realtor, their realtor was visiting -- with the offer), and decided to take it. So, after a brief detour, it's back to being in a deep funk.
Later today we'll be driving down to San Pedro to take a look around there. Tommorrow I'll think that we'll (or at least I'll) drive up to take another look around Pasadena, along with a first look at Alhambra, which seems to have a stock of decently-priced nice-looking older homes (are they so much cheaper than houses in nearby Pasadena because Alhambra is simply Not Pasadena, or because Alhambrans are held in the thrall of a vicious Crime Syndicate that cares nothing for property and human life? Hopefully I can tell just by driving by). Our agent has got the Orange County listings pretty well covered.
I don't doubt that we'll find someplace to live -- and someplace that meets all of our needs and that we're very happy living in. I'm just increasingly worried about how long it will take to find that someplace -- I hope that it happens before we burn up the goodwill of family members (who we're living with) and co-workers (who have to put up with my erratic work-product producing self).
Posted by Kevin at August 31, 2004 02:14 PMHi Kevin,
I bought a house last year and it wasn't that easy as well. Initially we just wanted to rent a flat. But we didn't find one we liked, and, as interest rates are low, decided to buy a house. We spent weekend after weekend to browse through the newspapers and driving around to take a look them. After about 9 month of searching we found "our" house but it took us about 3(!) more month to buy it because we had so much trouble (it's a special house and not every bank wanted to give the money). That was a very hard time. We thought several times, that it is impossible to buy that house, but in the end it worked. That was a very hard time for me, and when I look back, I'm not thinking about all the details anymore...
Good luck!
Oliver
just as an idea... if you go through all these painful 'deals' which turn out to be dead deals for months and months... isn't it probably better to get a piece of land and have something build that you actually really lik? it's a painful process too, but in the end probably a little more rewarding and probable not even more time consuming as olivers experience...
a german in the US,
olaf
Oliver: Thanks for your story -- I'm glad to hear that you were finally able to get your "impossible" house. I just hope that our house search doesn't take one year from start to finish, though!
Olaf: Buying a lot and then building a house on it (maybe something like the Glidehouse) is definitely something that we've thought about doing. The problem is that inside the city (the LA/Orange County metro area), there aren't many empty lots to be found, and they're all expensive. Outside the city, well, you're outside the city -- probably very scenic and laid-back, but we have to start worrying about things like high-speed Internet access (important, since we'll both be working from home) and distance to hospitals (not a big deal for most people, but also important to us because of our recent family history).
Posted by: Kevin at September 4, 2004 01:07 AM