The Long Search for Home

In case you missed the news, we've finally found our new home! To those of you who think I'm making a big deal about this, it is a big deal for us. We have been talking about the need to find our own home - somewhere - for over two years. It took us a long time to decide where we wanted to live, a process which even included asking you for advice.

We've been actively looking for a home to buy for over a year and a half, locally for about the last 9 months. It had been very frustrating locally because our budget didn't give us many choices and the choices that were available were being snatched up by investors looking to flip or rent the properties. We'd resigned ourselves to having to settle for a house that needed considerable repairs (although the termite-ridden house didn't even make the list!), was on a smaller lot than we wanted, and was not in the best of neighborhoods. We've been stressed and depressed over the housing situation for so long, we hardly know anything else.

This changed a few weeks ago due to two things. The first was finally giving in and asking a realtor to help us. We'd resisted this but it turned out to be a good move. Having your own realtor means you can get in to see properties much faster than if you are relying solely on contacting the selling agent. Despite the fact that my sweetie did searches on available properties several times a day, it was helpful to have another pair of eyes doing this as well; plus realtors have access to a little more information than the public.

The other was when my sweetie was doing a map search and accidentally clicked out too far from the city center. Now, let me give a little background. In our research into where to live, we considered darn near every option from big city to rural middle of nowhere, moving without employment lined up, continuing as renters as long as the job held out, and even buying a property in any small town within 120 miles with my sweetie commuting weekly and living in an apartment in the city. Many were not great options, especially in this economic climate.

In the last couple of months, discouraged at the lack of appropriate properties in the city, we began to consider outlying areas. Using our budget as a guide, we investigated a number of possibilities. In every case, the problem ultimately ended up being lack of bikeable options. House prices are lower but the roads accessing these outlying areas are narrow, often winding, and have no shoulders, not to mention bike lanes. We were also warned about the problem of drunk drivers in some of these areas. While biking may not be possible all the time for us, we want it to be a possibility, especially as the long-range implications of peak oil point to rising gas prices.

Some outlying areas were not even considered because the home prices were beyond our means. This is one of the areas my sweetie accidentally ended up in on his recent map search for real estate. And, low and behold, there were a few possibilities...if we were willing to accept manufactured housing instead of a site-built house. By this time, the answer was emphatically yes. In fact, manufactured houses offer us some advantages over site-built houses: easy access under the house means re-plumbing for graywater use is far easier, under the house is a cool zone that may be appropriate for "root cellaring" some produce, and they are generally built with good insulation and dual-pane windows.

We contacted our realtor and took a trip out to see several places, picking what seemed to be the nicest one first. It was nice, inside and out but it's best to look at all the options before jumping into something. So, we looked at the next one. Well, actually we just drove to it and didn't even get out of the vehicle. Uh uh, nope, no way, not at that price. Off to the next, with dubious directions. The directions were so bad that we never did find the place. Mentally, my sweetie and I had already crossed it off the list anyway because the dirt road crossed a wash that was running at the entrance to the neighborhood. It had not rained recently which meant that the road might very well be impassable during the summer monsoon season. Ergo, not an option.

We agreed to meet the realtors later to draw up an offer on the first place. When they called the seller's agent, we were stunned to find out there was already an offer on it. Luckily, it was a brand new listing and the sellers were not considering any offers for the first five days. By then, there were a total of three offers so the lucky seller got to pit us against one another for the "highest and best" offer. Since it was priced lower than our budget limit, we swallowed hard and increased our offer. We decided to do what it was going to take to get a home.

And then we waited, on pins and needles, for an answer. Three more days, after making the higher bid, of sitting by the phone waiting to find out whether we could finally stop looking or if we were still at Square One. Late Friday, after we were sure we'd spend a sleepless weekend without knowing, we heard our offer was accepted.

Yay! We're still negotiating the closing date but in any case, we hope to be moved to our new home by the end of April. It's been a long, long search for home. On one level, we can finally relax. On many others, the work is just beginning - the packing, the moving, the unpacking, planning a garden, meeting the neighbors, getting to know the community, and so on. Settling in will be hard work, but so much easier than not being able to act on our dreams.