ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2006-12-12 10:12 pm
ladysprite) wrote2006-12-12 10:12 pm
Up and Down and Up and Down
I don't think I've ever experienced an emotional rollercoaster quite as drastic as househunting. I've had tense and complicated and emotionally charged experiences before, but never anything quite like this - both immediate and rapidly changing and still somehow prolonged, as the hunt goes on and on.
It starts out on a high note. Looking at the lists of houses online that our buyer's agent sends us is fun, even if the houses don't all suit us. The good-looking ones are interesting and exciting and full of potential, and the bad ones are entertaining in their severity. And we're learning to translate between ad-copy and reality, so that's amusing, too.
Then comes the list-making. Which is still fun for me, because I'm obsessive like that, but also has the added benefit of making me feel busy and industrious, like I'm accomplishing something. Lists of houses, lists of potential good and bad points, and location, and prices.
Unfortunately, that's the peak. It's all downhill from there, starting with getting ready to see the houses. Anxiety starts creeping in as we get ready to visit the houses and I start worrying about whether they'll be as good as they look and whether we'll actually be able to afford the good ones. Inevitably, this is followed by despair, frustration, and fatalism as we examine half a dozen houses in quick succession, either to find that they're all grim, moldy, and tilted enough to make me seasick as I walk from the den to the kitchen, or perched at the top of a parking-free mountain that even the Three Billygoats Gruff would have trouble climbing under the best of circumstances.
The worst part of this is actually finding bits and pieces that we love, in packages that we just can't accept in their entirety. If we could put House One on Lot Two, and move the whole thing to Street Three, we'd be fine. As it is, it seems that we have looked at every available house in four different cities, and have yet to find anything quite right. This, of course, settles me firmly in a quagmire of misery as I convince myself that I'm being too picky and that I need to find a way to be happy with a queasy cube of blue stucco with six-foot ceilings and an electric stove, in a neighborhood with no on-street parking.
Of course, none of this stops me from perking up when my sweetie asks me if I want to look over the new listings that came in over the past week. And so we start again.....
It starts out on a high note. Looking at the lists of houses online that our buyer's agent sends us is fun, even if the houses don't all suit us. The good-looking ones are interesting and exciting and full of potential, and the bad ones are entertaining in their severity. And we're learning to translate between ad-copy and reality, so that's amusing, too.
Then comes the list-making. Which is still fun for me, because I'm obsessive like that, but also has the added benefit of making me feel busy and industrious, like I'm accomplishing something. Lists of houses, lists of potential good and bad points, and location, and prices.
Unfortunately, that's the peak. It's all downhill from there, starting with getting ready to see the houses. Anxiety starts creeping in as we get ready to visit the houses and I start worrying about whether they'll be as good as they look and whether we'll actually be able to afford the good ones. Inevitably, this is followed by despair, frustration, and fatalism as we examine half a dozen houses in quick succession, either to find that they're all grim, moldy, and tilted enough to make me seasick as I walk from the den to the kitchen, or perched at the top of a parking-free mountain that even the Three Billygoats Gruff would have trouble climbing under the best of circumstances.
The worst part of this is actually finding bits and pieces that we love, in packages that we just can't accept in their entirety. If we could put House One on Lot Two, and move the whole thing to Street Three, we'd be fine. As it is, it seems that we have looked at every available house in four different cities, and have yet to find anything quite right. This, of course, settles me firmly in a quagmire of misery as I convince myself that I'm being too picky and that I need to find a way to be happy with a queasy cube of blue stucco with six-foot ceilings and an electric stove, in a neighborhood with no on-street parking.
Of course, none of this stops me from perking up when my sweetie asks me if I want to look over the new listings that came in over the past week. And so we start again.....
no subject
But once we'd looked at enough places (which in our case took until the spring rush, due to the aforementioned relative dearth of houses coming onto the market) we found that the lots-of-looking-at-stuff had prepared us well - we had a much better sense of what we liked, what we were willing to compromise on, how rare certain features were, and in general how what we were seeing compared to other houses. It took us less and less time to figure out, "nope, not going to put an offer on this house"; and when we found places we liked, we realized it quickly.
It sounds like you've gotten to that point, too - so when a house you'll really like does come along you can jump on it.
The worst part of this is actually finding bits and pieces that we love, in packages that we just can't accept in their entirety. If we could put House One on Lot Two, and move the whole thing to Street Three, we'd be fine. This, of course, settles me firmly in a quagmire of misery as I convince myself that I'm being too picky and that I need to find a way to be happy with a queasy cube of blue stucco with six-foot ceilings and an electric stove, in a neighborhood with no on-street parking.
Yeah, I hear you.
Don't let that quagmire drag you down, though. While compromise may be a part of house-buying, in my experience at least, for those occasional worthwhile houses it was more of a "Hey, yeah, *this* house would be worth [compromises X and Y]!" feeling - not a "choose your misery" thing.
Good hunting!