Tia and I have been house hunting of late, though hunting seems to focused a word for what we are doing. House browsing perhaps? House window shopping? Maybe house wish listing is most accurate.
Deciding where and how to live is an interesting new phenomena in my life. I have pretty low standards honestly, or have until recently. Heat, roof, kitchen, and preferably quiet when it is supposed to be. Ideally situated somewhere not too far from my place of employment. On my own, I have little enough to fill most spaces, so a one bedroom domicile would have been sufficient (2 would have seemed opulent). Of course, that has changed as I have gotten older and gotten married. Part of getting married is acquiring things, something I have not heretofore been exceedingly proficient in on my own. I don't mean to shine a bad light on it, I just have never owned much more than could fit in my car.......and driving a Rabbit doesn't allow for much.
When seeking a new place to live, nothing about combining the likes and dislikes of two people with moderate means and, therefore, a moderate budget, is simple. 1-2 bedrooms becomes 3. 1 bath becomes 2. Kitchens need to be expansive enough to house gadgets used for specific purposes instead of the catch-all utilitarian pieces I am most acclimated to, room for myriad glassware designed to accomodate a diverse range of beverages must be arranged, and wire baskets of some aesthetic value need to be procured to house something called 'fresh fruit' (which is frequently displayed prominently on the counter). Closets must be capacious enough to accomodate more than my own meager accumulation of clothing (made more robust with Tia doing a majority of my shopping) as well as her own abundant (though not necessarily by the standards of her peer group) array of apparel. Plus, one room with a TV (formerly known as the living room) creates a difficult compromise during football season. Oh yeah, and finding a place that isn't either: A. a dump, B. out in BFE, or C. wildly overpriced seems about as likely as Mensa extending an invite to Jessica Simpson. On top of all of this Tia has critters that require a space that meets their specific environmental requirements while being far enough away from the living space to drown out their nocturnal play and allow me to sleep.
Suffice to say, we aren't having extensive amounts of fortune locating places that we would feel comfortable owning. So, for the time being, Wilsonville apartment dwellers we remain. With the thought of moving from one apartment to another fairly unpalatable, it remains unlikely that renting nearer to Portland seems a possibility either. Maybe next summer, once the rain dries up and the sun peaks out again, it will seem like an alternative worth pursuing. Or maybe by then the house of our dreams, and means, will finally be available.
2 comments:
I really can't think of anyone that I know that can truly "afford" to buy a house right now. By "afford" I mean that they wouldn't be cash strapped by purchasing a home. Even our mortgage has always seemed higher than what should be comfortable. It's sad because you think that two middleclass incomes could get you a decent 3/2 detached home in this country, but it just isn't so these days. The only ones getting ahead seem to be those that were fortunate enough to have bought a home 10 years ago when the income to home price ratio was much smaller. These folks now have locked in there low mortgages while continuing to see their incomes rise steadily.
So, I say you either have to bite the bullet and get a mortgage for more than you can actually "afford" (which means shelling out big dollars for a mortgage while sacrificing date nights and good food) or stay put as a renter for the time being & just hope that some sort of equalization occurs with inflation. Neither choice is that great really...but at least there is a choice. Good luck!
Bryan,
It has always been one of the most difficult decisions to make (buying a home), third to should we get married and should we have a baby.
As with all of these decisions you think they are impossible at times, but in the long haul of life it will average out to being a very smart decision. There were many many times that your dad and I thought we could not afford having a house and yet we always struggled through, made our payments and even with this horrible market should still be far ahead in the overall assessment of buying and selling over the years. Not that my opinion matters much I would like to say that this is by far the very best time to move into the buying market. Once this federal bailout program is out there the next transition will be to have the lenders start lending again to move the housing inventory.
Anyway love you and hope all is well. Mom
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