Category: Home

The last house I bid on was on the market for all of 10 days and someone else offered a higher bid than me and got it. So now I am 0-3 in this whole house buying gig. However, each time I don’t get a house, I end up finding something that is better than the one I almost bought and so I am sort of glad that God keep closing the doors on me and saying, “HOLD UP!”

I have been staying with my buddy Nathan for the last 3 days and he lives closer to where I work than where my real dad lives and he has a roommate named Chip who is really cool. Nathan and Chip are the kind of guys that you want to hang out with for hours at a time and talk about the crap that guys like to talk about. Food, girls, investment properties, money, regularity – not necessarily in that order. Anyway, living with them for the past 3 days has totally rocked and it has made me not in such a rush to get into a new house which is great because you should never rush one of the biggest and most expensive purchases of your life. This isn’t a 12 pack of Sprinkles 3 dollar cupcakes that I am buying on an impulse buy – it is a 30 year mortgage!

So after I didn’t get the house that I wanted I told my sister to bid on the second one that I really liked. However, she called me back and said that maybe we should wait because there is another one that is supposedly awesome for cheaper that will go on the market this weekend. According to the realtor that she talked to it has all sorts of upgrades and it is beautiful.  We’ll soon find out and in the meantime, if it isn’t what I want, I hope the other place doesn’t sell. It’s all very vexing, but it has been a great learning experience for me.

I wish that I could tell you that I have found THE house and that I have made an offer and they have accepted it – but I haven’t. Unfortunately, every realtor seems to be excellent at taking photos of houses that look like crap but making them look fabulous. If you take a picture of a stove from far enough away people won’t be able to see the grease build-up and the rust stains. With the right lighting light orange carpet can almost look beige and if the angle is right the buyer won’t even see that gaping hole in the ceiling or that large piece of torn wallpaper that was torn off the wallpaper that was put up back in the 1980’s when someone thought seashells and seafoam green were nice options.

As I’ve bitched and moaned on here before about me being tired and out of sorts not living in my own place, today I had to slap myself and say, “HEY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF!”  My world is upside down for a moment, a mere blip, 2-3 months out of my life and yes I worked hard to create a routine world filled with structure, comfort and security, and no wear I am living is not ideal, but chill out, calm down, get a grip and deal with it. Ugh. I get so self-obsessed sometimes that it is always about me. My house. My diet. My problems. Lately there have been a lot of things to deal with, but I am dealing with them and it’s not like I’m homeless living out on the streets eating out of a trashcan. (However, if you go to Highland Park you can eat pretty good out of a trash can I bet.)

So yesterday I went and looked at a house and let me tell you it looked GREAT online. I thought it was THE ONE, but when I went inside it was a nightmare. However, and this is a big However, yesterday I found what might be THE HOUSE and I am sumo excited about it, but at the same time I found 14 other properties just in case when I go inside it doesn’t look as good as it does in the pictures.

Here are some of the pictures:

Isn’t this kitchen pretty awesome? Look at the countertops and the vaulted ceiling.

There is only one living room but it is 20X16!

The only downside is that this is a corner lot and it is pretty close to a busy street. But it doesn’t back up to it, it is the facing the houses that back up to the busy street. It’s still in a great location and priced in my budget.

We’ll see how it goes, I hate it when I find one I really like because then I get all ancy and there are always others out there… I just have to keep telling myself that.

Until I buy a house and probably a couple of years thereafter this blog will most likely feature nothing but house stories because houses and cupcakes seem to be my current obsession.

 I made another offer on a house on Tuesday. It’s 2 story and tudor style with hardwood floors in the living room and kitchen and new carpet in the remaining rooms. It isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it is exactly what I need. It’s about 1800 square feet so it’s not too big and not too small. It has a nice backyard and behind the backyard it has a large greenbelt so you can go out there and set up a tent for camping or bury bodies if you happen to go on a killing spree.

So yesterday I am waiting and hoping and praying that these house sellers will accept my offer and that in a matter of days I will be living in a place all my own. Every time my phone rings I think it might be my sister calling me to tell me that they accepted my offer or at least countered with a decent offer. Nothing. They didn’t call. My sister finally called and said, “I don’t know why she hasn’t called me back.”

So I go online to look at the pictures of the house so I can dream of what color I am going to paint hte living room and whether or not I should put wallpaper in the half bath downstairs or if I should paint it.  I look in my online portfolio of possible house options and I don’t see my house! What? It was just there and now it is gone. I email my sister and tell her what is up. She calls me back later to tell me the house is off the market and that the agent still hasn’t called her back. Ugh. What does this mean? Does it mean that the seller suddenly decided not to sell it? Did he sell it to someone else? It doesn’t make sense that the two houses that I wanted are sold as soon as I make an offer on them.

So here I am obsessing this morning and wondering if maybe they are planning to accept my offer and that is why they took it off the market, or if they already sold it and so I am back to the hunt. It’s a tiring and vexing game considering that I want nothing more than to be in my own place and back in my old routine with my spotless bathroom and washer and dryer. Going to the laundry mat sucks majorly.

I’ll obviously keep you posted on what happens and if I hear anything today.

Love and Eggrolls!

 Eddo