Before
we started looking we had made our list of “must have’s” things like a master
bathroom, a garage, a finished (or finishable) basement and a big yard. What we
ended up with was a home with no master bath, no garage and a fieldstone
foundation – we did however get the yard we wanted. We moved in like two giddy
school children, painting every surface in the house, buying new furniture and
settling into our new life. This was it – we planned on being there at least
5-7 years if not longer… then I got pregnant.
In
the early stages of my pregnancy I would say in passing to Brian “I’d like to
put the house on the market” and he’d ignore me.Eventually after a month or so
of this he finally said “fine…” so I spoke with a Realtor who gave us
comparables and what she thought we could sell for. After presenting this
information to Brian he said “forget it – we’re staying” and that was the end
of that. That was when we developed our five year plan. We’d start saving money
so that when Lucas was five and needed to start school we’d be able to purchase
a new home in the town I wanted to be in, one with a great school system, close
to my family and ultimately the one we grew up in. Fast-forward to the end of
my pregnancy and I no longer cared about the five year plan. After spending
what felt like hours a day in my car during maternity leave driving the 35
minutes to my hometown I realized I no longer had it in me to wait.
So
once again I approached Brian, only this time I was serious. I explained my
reasoning behind selling, and what it would mean for our family. After a lot of
thought and back and forth Brian once again begrudgingly agreed. I called our
Realtor, Kathryn Early (who by the way is AMAZING!), once more, explained our new situation and we were
off. Much later Brian told me he never expected the house to sell (certainly
not as fast as it did) which is why he agreed initially. After meeting with
Katy and going over the numbers again I was blunt with her. I told her we had a
bottom line figure that we would sell for and not one penny less. We wanted to
sell but we weren’t going to give away our home. Katy listed our house on
Monday November 4th and we had a signed offer to purchase that
Saturday. I was shocked. Then came the request to close before the end of the
year. That meant we had less than 6 weeks to pack and get out. The reality hit
us both like a ton of bricks. Not only had our home sold, but we had NO plans
of where we’d go.
We
immediately started looking at homes in our new destination, but unfortunately
between the lack of inventory and the condition of what was out there
purchasing just wasn’t in our cards. We knew we weren’t going to settle this
time, those “must have’s” we compromised on the first time we weren’t going
without the second. This next home, while most likely not our forever home, is going to be pretty damn close to it so we
knew we wanted to take our time. So off to look at apartments we went. After
viewing your standard Avalon homes and then a few new construction condos, we
knew that from a savings standpoint it made absolutely no sense to live in an
apartment for the same cost as our mortgage. Making the choice to live in one
of these would mean putting off our home purchase longer than we wanted.
And
that’s when my parents stepped in. Roughly 15 years ago my parents redid their
basement to accommodate my aging grandparents, they created a living space, a
bedroom, a ¾ bath and a kitchenette. At the time of our sale it was occupied by
my younger, college-aged sister who luckily for us had moved back on campus
that fall. My parents, after discussing it with each other, offered to let us
live with them until we found the home we wanted. We all knew it would mean
compromise on all our parts and that it would take some adjusting but it was a
perfect option. It would allow us to save more money each month than living in
any apartment, it would give us the time to really look for something without
worrying about breaking a lease when we found our house and we’d be in the town
I wanted to be in. Bonus is that when Brian travels (every other week) I’m not
alone with the baby. I have my family around me to help me! We moved in with my
parents just before Thanksgiving and spent the rest of November and much of
December moving. With us both working, the new baby and the holidays it
definitely took longer than we’d ever anticipated but by Christmas we were out –
just in time too since we closed on our sale December 27th.
We’ve
now been with my parents for almost exactly two months and so far it’s been
great. We share meals with them a few times a week, Lucas gets to spend time
with his Gigi and Dave between when I get home and when Brian does, I’m
surrounded by family when Brian travels and we have our own space. While there
have been a few tense moments, as to be expected when you move in with your
family, for the most part we’ve been very lucky. I’m hopeful that things won’t
change.
Unfortunately
for both myself and Brian, sometimes we shy away from the question when people
ask where we are living now that we sold the house. Our pride gets in the way
and we don’t want to say we are living in my parents’ basement (which essentially
we are). It’s hard to go from owning your own home to feeling like your
squatting with family (even though we are paying rent!). But we try to take
each day as it comes and I think we’re getting past it. I think it’s more our
desire to have our own home again and have a place that Lucas can call his own.
Every day we are looking online to see what’s out there and every day our
dreams grow more. I can’t tell you the number of houses I would buy in
heartbeat … and then I see the asking price! I swear some people are NUTS! But
having just been on the selling end of things, I totally understand. You know
what your house is worth to you, and what you’ve put into it. It’s definitely
an emotional concept.
As
the snow begins to melt (or in our case pile up) more houses have been coming
on the market. Having worked in both residential and commercial lending for the
last 6 years I have a good background on the market and the cyclical manner in
which it travels. With each house that comes on, there’s one more waiting in
the wings. While we don’t have an “eviction” date we’d ideally like to be back
in our own home before Lucas’ first birthday. That gives us roughly nine months
to find (or even build) the home we want. And if, by some chance, we don’t find
it we always have a home with my parents… some people aren’t so lucky.
Here’s
hoping 2014 will be as good to us as 2013 and we’ll be homeowners again soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment