We found a nice little house in a neighborhood we like. It had been on the market since Tuesday. By Friday, when we spotted the advertisement, the sellers already had one offer and a couple were sitting at the table writing out another when we arrived with our agent to have a look. None of the normal rules of house buying seem to apply in this market. You had better be sure you like what you see and be ready to jump right then, no time for second thoughts. In fact, it's almost easier to just make lots of offers in hopes that one will come through. Forget about actually finding someplace that's perfect for you. You'll be lucky to find something that isn't falling down around your ears in a rotten location. I hear buying one's first home is generally an anxious and nerve-wracking experience, but this is ridiculous.
My dad, who has a great deal of experience buying and selling homes, recommends we buy a piece of land and put a prefab house on it. It's a sensible idea, especially for people who don't have a boatload of money. Unfortunately, land around here is just as overpriced and hard to find. This is Silicon Valley, and there are far more people trying to buy than there are houses or plots available. Most of those other buyers have about $100,000 more than we do. It's terribly disheartening.
I go through three stages when househunting each weekend. First, I get nervous: what if we don't find anything? What if we do find something and we forget to ask important questions? How the hell do we go about making an offer that won't make a dog laugh? It's a combination of stage fright and distress at our lack of experience.
Secondly, anger. It makes me furious that I have a reasonable amount of money and I am essentially priced out of the market before I start looking. Nothing sells at the asking price; we are told to add 1 percent of the asking price to our bid based on how many offers are already on the table. That means we're unable to look at anything near the total of our savings. We have to allow a big margin so we can try to outbid someone. That means we're back where we started from fifty thousand dollars ago, which is crappy housing in crappy areas. I usually reach this stage by the fourth house.
Thirdly, profound depression. We can't compete. We just can't. If we hadn't spent all our money on fun stuff we would be able to afford something nice, but alas, we blew it on travel (me) and cool junk (John). I can be totally out of debt in one year's time if I do nothing but pay my bills at my current rate and never buy another thing on credit. Like that's going to happen. We didn't think we wanted to buy a house, so we didn't save for it until quite recently. Grasshopper mentality. So I get terribly depressed that we can't afford a house we like and it's all our own fault.
At this point we go home, relax, and thank our maker this is the worst problem we face in life. By next weekend we'll be ready to run through our paces again, hoping we luck into something. This whole experience combines the least attractive elements of traveling to a new country where you don't speak the language, being trapped on an enormous rollercoaster, and arriving in the big city fresh from the farm. It's not very enjoyable, but I think the end result will be worth it.
The Index
Next Incarnation