House Hunting Woes

Raise your hand if you watch HGTV.

(Yes, it counts if your "just happen" to catch a show here and there while your wife has it on. Ahem, Dad.)

Raise your hand again if you've seen House Hunters and thought to yourself, "Aw, shopping for houses is so much fun! I can't wait to do that/do that again one day!"

Now take your raised hand and smack yourself in the forehead with it because that is the dumbest idea you've ever had. Sure, shopping for houses is super fun--when it lasts all of THIRTY MINUTES and is with SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY.

We started house hunting right around the new year and I was feeling pretty confident way back then. I had my list of "must haves" and "would like to haves" and had set up some searches on the Realtor.com app so that I could track listings in our price range. I even splurged and bought a super sleek green spiral notebook to keep all of our house hunting/purchasing related notes in.

Our realtor encouraged us to start looking at houses right off the bat and to be honest, I was all, "Pssht, this is way too early. It will take me all of two days to find the right house, lady."

I should have known things would not be so easy from Day 1. I had one particular house in mind that I thought was "the one" from the online photos. Unfortunately, the blue carpeted kitchen and stale cigarette odor that permeated everything hadn't been so obvious in the online listing.

On to house #2--oh no, just kidding, we didn't actually get to see house #2 on our list because it went under contract the night before we saw it.

Okay, third time's a charm. And charming it was--an old century home in downtown Delaware with a cute front porch. It would have worked well for us. If we took turns living in it, that is. (This place was shoebox-tiny, folks.)

That's cool, we're persistent people. Surely house #4 will do the trick. And it almost kind of did, (mostly because I think we were being delusional) but in the end, we couldn't get past the fact that it overlooked the picturesque chain link fences of the Delaware County Fairgrounds AND the next door neighbors were one trash bag away from being featured on Hoarders.

So when house #5 came along, we were on cloud 9. This place was IT. It had the space we needed, a family friendly layout and a super backyard. Plus it came in under budget! Sold!

Almost. Because once we got the inspection report back, we realized that our rose-colored glasses had neglected to see the fact that the house needed to be entirely resided (along with a boatload of other repairs).

Feeling pretty bummed, we decided to let that one go. We waited a couple more weeks and then decided to venture out again, looking at three more houses in our price range. House #6 was a no-go due to backyard and kitchen issues that didn't work for us, House #7 was a bank owned property that needed more work than we had resources and House #8 was...(wait for it...)practically perfect in every way! We seriously couldn't believe what a steal it was, so we jumped on it.

And so did another buyer.

Aaannd we lost. Talk about being bummed out.

Which brings us to today. As it stands, we have seen pretty much every possible option in our price range and desired location. I know what you're thinking, though. You're thinking, "Oh, Sarah, you've only seen 8 houses! There's still plenty of time! Something will come along for you guys!"

And if you say that to me, there is a 99.7% chance I will punch you. Because let me explain something to you--

1. Our lease ends on April 30th, upon which it will renew on a two month by two month basis. We have to give 60 days notice before we can move out. This means that if we don't find a house by March 1st, we're stuck in our lease until June 30th. (And just so we're clear, no, my stay-at-home-mom salary does not afford us the luxury to "buy out" our lease or pay both a rent and a mortgage in the same month.)

2. Our current digs, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of visiting us, are a 2 bedroom less-than-1000 square foot townhome with virtually no yard or storage space. We spend approximately thirty minutes every week figuring out where we are going to put our newly purchased groceries. We cannot fathom how we could possibly fit even one more thing into this house. Which brings me to my next point...

3. I am GIVING BIRTH in approximately 70 days. To a HUMAN BEING. This little person will not fit into our townhouse, I am certain of it. Please do not try to tell me that babies don't take up much space. I will not listen to you. And also I will definitely punch you.

4. My keen financial sense tells me that surely interest rates will skyrocket on exactly March 2nd, so then we will be both stuck in a lease AND unable to afford anything more than maybe convincing the hoarders from House #4 to let us squat on their property.

So, you see, these four very valid points mixed in careful proportions with my control freak, impatient Type A personality AND a whole slew of pregnancy hormones makes this entire experience something of a nightmare for Tom and I these days. (I'll throw my mom into that mix too, since I call her every other hour to complain).

How am I coping, you ask? Today I made a pit stop at Kroger on the way home from the library so that I could treat myself to Doritos, Ramen noodles and a brownie for lunch.

We'd better find a house soon.