A month ago I came home from work to find Shane on the phone with the police and our front door busted in. Yup, we got robbed.
That's a lovely sight to come home to, right? Not only did they smash our door frame to bits, they took our XBOX 360, PS3, and my beloved 27" iMac. They were also apparently in the process of raiding our DVD collection when our upstairs neighbors came home and that scared them off. Thankfully our two dogs were safe and sound, and building maintenance came over later to fix it with some EXTRA HEAVY DUTY hardware to deter any future pesky burglars.
That day, we decided to buy a house.
Don't get me wrong here, this isn't just some sort of impulse decision. We had already started saving for one but were going to stay in the apartment for a few years until we had a nice big down payment saved up. After the break in, we started to rethink that strategy. I mean, my car had been broken into six months before while parked right outside our door. And when the building was literally struck by lightning later that week, we took it as a sign we'd made the right decision.
Here's something HGTV doesn't tell you though...house hunting sucks. Especially when you're looking for something in Nashville, recently named one of the most desirable cities in America. And you're on a budget. Oh, and you want to live in one of the trendiest parts of town. Needless to say, we've had to make some compromises already. It gets pretty frustrating when everything in your budget is either basically uninhabitable, in the sketchiest part of town, or haunted by the old lady died there, leaving her 50 year old furniture and wallpaper behind. Our real estate agent is fantastic and we love him, but he's not a magician.
It's also really difficult to actually find an available property in this market. The market has picked up a bit but interest rates are still pretty low, so things are going so quickly. Our agent said the last house he sold was under contract within just FOUR HOURS of listing! Crazy! And for every ten listings we find online and think are decent-looking, about two of those will actually be available. That means if you find something you like and it's available, you need to go see it ASAP or it'll be gone the next day. Can you say "impulse purchase?"
We actually already made an offer on one house and had to withdraw it, which sucked because it was the cutest house ever and the yard was amazing. Too bad when they did the inspection they found out that not only were the kitchen cabinets original to the 1934 house, so was the knob and tube electrical wiring. The plumbing made of electrical conduit along with the leaks, termite damage, dead critters in the attic and crawlspace, and about eight zillion code violations were also turn-offs. Thank goodness for contract contingencies!
Since then, we've had to re-evaluate our priorities a lot and we actually think we've found another place that we like. No details just yet because it's not final and we don't want to count our chickens before they hatch, just go ahead and clear your schedules for the month of June so you can help us move.
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Don't you love our new place? We're going to spend a fortune on tapestries though, those hallways can get pretty drafty #firstworldproblems
To be continued...
