Getting Started

As my first blog post, I suppose I should make it interesting enough for you to want to come back and read it again... but unfortunately you are just stuck with whatever comes out of these fingers of mine, before I give up this scheme and go back to more important things like, say, cleaning my house.

That brings us to the subject of my house. This will probably be the primary talking point of this blog, since other than work, it is the place I spend most of my time. I also spend most of my free time attempting to make it into a house I love even more than the first day I saw it, a little over six months ago. Seven months ago I wasn't even planning on buying a house for another year, but it is strange what the outcome of one random phone call can do to your plans.

So if you don't know it already, here is the little story of how I came to buy this house:

A little over six months ago I was fortunate enough to receive a promotion at work, one that would greatly improve my ability to save for emergencies, pay off debt, etc. That was the plan anyway. But I had a Friday off and I was sitting in my little (very awesome) apartment in Curtis Park, when I thought I would call a mortgage broker to see what I would need to do to buy a house. To my surprise, he told me he could get me financed right then and there! You may note the exclamation point, but this is not the housing boom anymore, not just anyone can get approved and I was pretty sure that I needed to save like crazy for at least the next year to manage even a passable down payment.

Remember this was Friday, so there wasn't much else I could do except look for a realtor in anticipation of spending all my future hardwon earnings. Except there was. I spent most of Saturday looking at houses online and when I just couldn't stand it anymore, I dragged DCB with me to look at some of the houses on my list.

You may find it ironic that I bought the first house I looked at, but it certainly wasn't planned. It wasn't even on my list. We just happened to see it as we cruised around the corner from DCBs house, on the way to a completely different location. But it was a really cute house, with a for sale sign in front, so we stopped to take a look. Fortunately, like all the houses on the list, it was vacant, 'cause we walked right up and peered in the windows and broke into the back yard. And that was when I fell in love with my house.

Unfortunately, when we went back home, after looking at all the other houses, we discovered that my house was priced at least 40k more than I could afford. I can't remember the exact amount, but I am pretty sure that it dropped twice in the coming month. So I gave up on this house, kind of, and went in search of a realtor.

You would think that this would be easy. And it is. There are hundreds, if not thousands in Sacramento alone, but I really wanted someone I felt I could trust. The ironic thing is, I didn't go with the woman who was referred to me by a friend. Nope, I went with the random stranger from my neighborhood, that I met at the dog park. Mainly because he took the time to describe the whole process to me, but mostly because it felt like the right thing to do. Believe me, I don't think I could have found a better realtor if I had interviewed them all.

The next couple weeks were spent looking at houses within five miles of work, built before 1950, and, very importantly, within my price range. I even found a steal for 145k. It was a fixer, but nothing I couldn't figure out. I wanted to put in a bid, unfortunately for me, it had already gone under contract :(. So I looked some more, but none of the houses was speaking to me. None of them really felt my house.

Remember when I said above that I had given up on my house. That was a lie. I kept it on the back burner. I even watched it fall  in price, but not enough.

One night, as I was trying to compile a list of houses to go look at for the weekend, I looked, once again, longingly at the pictures of my house. I determined to ask my realtor if he thought the seller might accept a low-ball offer. The next morning, I started out the morning ritual of checking to see if there were any new houses to put on the list, when I noticed that my house was now 30k cheaper!

This was more than enough to put it in my price range.

I immediately emailed my realtor and said I needed to see the inside of this house. Keep in mind this was about six in the morning. I couldn't stand the pressure, so on the light rail into work I texted him reiterating that this was really important to me that I see this house. I said I would figure it out if I needed to leave work early or whatever, but this one I had to see.

I should, perhaps, at this point give a little thanks to my supervisors at work for letting me jet out of the office on so many occasions beginning with this day and for letting me take so much time off, because I was gone and/or dealing with this off and on for about a month.

My realtor picked me up from work at lunch. We went to the house. I made it in the door about three steps before I knew that it was MY house. It may have something to do with the fact that the sun was shining through the french doors and the walls were painted a warm sunny yellow and the wooden floors had been polished not too long ago, but the living room just glowed and I knew I was home.

I said something along the lines of 'I love this house' and I am very grateful that my realtor made the wise suggestion that perhaps we look at all of the house. Which we did. And for good measure the yard as well. It was while looking at the yard, I knew that I had truly chosen the right realtor. I stepped in a BIG pile of doggy do and he  washed it off for me.

Perhaps needless to say, but I didn't make it back to work that day.

If you made it this far, then I guess I should promise some pictures next time, I like blogs with pictures better too. I can't just give away the surprise of my first tour of the house by posting a picture now though.