Home-Sweet-Rental

The time has come, friends, for the D-fam to relocate.  And by relocate, I mean try to find something affordable with room to grow, as close to our current abode as phyically possible.  And we are not interested in another rental!  The decision to purchase our first home was not one made easy.  In fact, I went kicking and screaming to open house after open house until I happened into the right open house and... game over.  Let me rewind about 6 months and start at the beginning...

Some time over the winter, T and I were running errands in our neighborhood and walked pass USAA, where we bank.  We walked in on a wild hair and talked to someone about our current finances and what they'd loan us for a home.  We weren't expecting much at the time but it was enough to plant the seed in Tory's mind.  We learned that with our measely little down payment and our debt to income ratio that includes only student loans we could afford a cramped 2 bedroom condo in Arlington.  No thanks.  I've done my time in apartments.  2 years of undergrad, 2 years of gradschool, and the last 2 years have sealed the deal for me.  Condo/Apartment.... tomato/tah-mah-toh... I'll pass.  At the time, I was content in continuing to rent but expanding our territory a little bit in a townhouse or single family home somewhere with a yard for the pup.  Tory was convinced that renting when we could own was completely ludacris.

So we had some conversations.  Owning here means staying put.  No up and leaving for Tory's dream Californian adventure for a few years.  No heading down to the land of southern hospitality.  No traditional suburbs in our immediate future (ick).  Owning means saying farewell to the rooftop pool, theater room, and clubhouse gym all included in our amenities fee.  Owning means mowing your lawn and cleaning your gutters... we don't even have gutters right now.   Owning means buying and changing your own lightbulbs... eek.  So we agreed that we'd keep our eyes on both markets.  If a workable rental became available, we'd look into it.  If something in our price range became avalable we'd look into that too. 

So we buckled down and saved our pennies for a more respectable down payment.  Fast forward 6 months and find me in a row home in the cutest little Alexandria neighborhood realizing in an instant that renting simply would not do.  Frankly there is about one attractive rental home in our budget in the  entire Arlington/Alexandria area and it is presently occupied by my favorite newly-weds.

Now I've been sucked into the home buying frenzy.  Its like in an instant, the switch flipped and now I'm obsessed.  We went into ONE amazing open house but we weren't financially prepared to make an offer... our mortgage broker worked hard and fast to get things together for us.. and now we're ready.  We've been checking this listings daily (ok... multiple times a day), and we've gotten to know our realtor pretty well.  We have learned all sorts of fancy legal/real estate terms and acronyms and I've been doing an uncomfortable amount of math lately.  We're in the zone and so far. this experience has taught me many lessons... Here are the top 2...

1. House hunting is disappointing.  Things rarely... almost never... look the way they do in the professional photos you see online.  Agents can be sleazy and slimy and borderline unlawful to make a few extra bucks.  Things happen quickly in this area... even being a few hours late to the show can cost you.
2. I will have to make sacrifices.   Living in this area means giving up square footage and paying a premium for what you do get.  I adore older properties.  The 3 homes I have fallen in love with (that were sold to others).... were all built in the early 50's.  This means that we will also have to sacrifice on closet and storage space... as well as bathroom luxuries and green space. 

While we have been disappointed in the homes we've missed out on and the unattractive ones we've seen... we have also learned a lot about what are must-haves....

1. Our own front door with our own walkway.  I am not always good with sharing.
2. An updated kitchen.  Sorry, this costs too much to do on our own.
3.THREE bedrooms.  As much as I like to joke, children are hopefully in our future one day and it would be great if they had a place to sleep.  Is it weird to think that in order to make owning a home worthwhile, we need to own it for at least 5 years... which means in the next 5 years I hope we have 1 or even 2 children.  Mind. BLOWN.
4. A bathtub.  If you know me at all, you know this is simply non-negotiable.
5. Green.  As in grass.  It doesnt have to have a fence- we can do that if we need to... but I seriously fantasize about the day we don't have to put Lu's harness and leash on for her to take a leak...

That's it.  Basically.  I mean I could get really picky and say that we absolutely have to have 2 bathrooms and an open-concept and blah-de-blah but when it comes down to it those are the things that matter.  We'll find them, I am sure.  We haven't been looking all that long and the market changes every day up here.  This is both a blessing and a curse in many ways... but in the end, it's that many new opportunities for us to purchase our first home together.

Our first home... where we will hang our first wedding photos (no, I haven't done it yet), and paint our first walls.  Where we will bring our future babies home from the hospital, where they will take their first steps and play outside in the tiny yard that we have to buy our first lawn-mower for.  This is nothing to take lightly.  So please pray for us, keep us in your minds.