I have officially closed the door on buying a home and opened the door of owning a home. This morning at some point my realtor will call me so I can come pick up the keys to my new home. The buying process was quite a pain. Since not everyone I know owns a home, I will put it all in a nutshell for you, and those that do own a home can chime in or just nod your head and talk to your computer.
I've always wanted to own a home but it has never been very practical. I'm somewhat of a nomad (due to my gypsy blood, just ask my grandmother) and never knew where I would be one year to the next. After wandering a bit, I feel pretty happy up here and think I'll stay awhile. How long? I don't know, seriously. But I've always wanted a house I could truly make my own. Last night talking to my friend Gwen who lives up here, she's going to come over on Saturday and help paint my sunroom/jacuzzi room floor. She asked if she could bring her dog. It was an amazing feeling to: a) have a backyard big enough that the dog can run around on his own and b) not have to clear it through a landlord to allow some one's dog to come over. This is truly a big difference between owning and renting. Outside of code violations and obvious unlawfulness, I am allowed to do whatever the hell I want with my house. I'm the boss. This is awesome.
So upon deciding I would be living up here awhile and that I'm in an area where it's cheaper to buy than to rent, I decided to go house hunting. I'll actually be paying about $150 per month less to buy this house than if I stayed renting. So I think I'm actually going to just keep paying the extra $150 per month and pay it off sooner. I found a house in the local real estate flyer that had an endless pool in the backyard. That was why I went and looked at it. Those things are worth$30,000! The house wasn't anything I could handle fixing up, although it had plenty of curb appeal. The realtor who showed me the place was very nice and accomodating so I adopted her as my realtor and put her in charge of helping me find a place and representing me. The coolest thing about buying a house is that you generally do not pay your realtor. When you buy a house, the seller pays all parties involved on a preset scale so for the buyer, the realtor is free. Very amazing.
So she sent me a listing within my budget and I narrowed 20 houses down to 5 that I wanted to look at. We looked at 5 in a matter of 2 hours and I narrowed my choices to 3. Looked at all 3 again and decided on a 2 bed 2 bath house about a block from where I live now. It was a foreclosed home and the bank had myself and another prospective buyer place bids. The other buyer won and I was out again searching for another home. I broadened my search to Montague and my realtor was excited because she had a house for sale there that she thought I would love. I looked through the pictures of it and was unimpressed but decided to look anyway. We put it on the list of the other 10 that we would be viewing that day. Yes, my realtor is awesome. I have no idea how she kept up with me.
I fell in love with this old house at first sight. The feeling I got inside the house was just amazing. The house had a character that none of the other houses had. I decided to forego looking at anymore and put a bid in. It was accepted which began the slow painful process of actually purchasing the house. After about 6 inspections, a few repairs, a cancelled loan and 2 months later, the house is mine. There's certainly a lot of work to do on the house but I'm so excited to do (most of) them.
I'm really excited to paint and posibly update floors and bathroom tiling. I'm super excited that this house is like a blank slate that I can paint my life onto. I'm not entirely thrilled that the front half of the house has ancient 1900 electrical wiring in it which will catch fire if there's anything lying near it, like insulation (so there is no insulation). That's not any sort of hazard since there isnt anything near it, but because there's no insulation in there, heating bills and efforts (wood stoves) will be pretty rough. There's also no insulation in the floor....who knew floors get insulated? So that's starting to move higher up my list of to-do things. Insulation is fairly important in northern California.
Yesterday I went out and bought a tv (I know, me?) a refrigerator, washer, dryer and looked at some woodstoves. I left my name for the guy to call me back to set up an appointment for him to come measure and look at my house so he can install the woodstove, making sure it's ok to put in that area. I also purchased Dish-Network. CRAAAAZY! Not only will I own a tv (flat 32") but I will also have satellite tv (with free HD for life) to watch on it. Soooo unlike me. Whatever, owning a home is a big thing, and I need access to HGTV for ideas and inspiration. I also needed a bigger screen than my laptop to watch netflix on when friends are around.
Then I called around to set up my electricty, home insurance, trash, water and sewer, and fuel for heating. We have Monitors up here that burn kerosene for fuel. Sounds very primitive but it's actually pretty nice. You set it on a certain temp and it keeps the house that warm. Today I need to measure how much fuel is in the tank since I don't have a woodstove for back-up yet. Up here you don't want to run out of fuel. It's not like San Diego where heat is a comfort thing. This is actually a life or death thing.
Anyway, then I drove out to Montague (about 6 miles from my current place) to sign up for my water and sewer and put down a deposit at City Hall. I didn't even know Montague had a city hall, so it's sort of promising. There's also something like a swimming pool right next to city hall. I don't think it's one of those that you can do laps in. Guess I have to drive up to Ashland for that.
So today I will get the keys to my house, then go over and take pictures and clean it before I move any furniture in. This way I can do before and after pics as well as work a little easier in my home improvement software that I have. My house can "try on" any paint, tiling, window treatments, wood floors, ceilings, fences, etc. before I actually go through and do them. Saves money and lessens the likelihood that I will absolutely destroy something. I'll post pics when I get them and also blog about any updates and repairs I do.
It's almost 8am....I should be getting a phone call any time now......
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