My husband and I are at that exciting time in our lives where we have reached such a level of comfort with each other and our positions in life that we are ready to ruin it all by plunging into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Yes, we are buying a house.
I have been practicing for this moment for many years. I have selected the type of home I want, the type of kitchen counter tops I want, the colors I will paint the living room... I just haven't actually explored the details of getting someone to loan me the shitload of money it will take to achieve my ambitions.
I never realized how much work is involved just to get to the point where you can start looking for a house. There are lenders to meet with - it's not enough to meet with just one; you have to meet with several to pit against one another so you can stand back and enjoy the bloodshed over a difference of a quarter point interest rate - and there are the endless reports to read about school zones, property taxes and crime rates. There are the types of loans to learn about and the Grown Up Vocabulary lessons that go along with them. There is the real estate agent search. In short, the world has conspired to suck all the fun out of the ultimate shopping experience by making it as time-consuming, frustrating and confusing as possible.
Tom and I sauntered into our first meeting with a lender with all the hubris of a couple with outstanding credit. We assumed banks would be falling all over themselves to give us the contents of their vaults. But while they were certainly more than willing to allow us to indebt ourselves to them for our lifetimes, they weren't quite so generous with their rates and quotes and various numbers. In fact, it started to feel uncomfortably like buying a car, which everybody knows is a slimy process that makes you want to scrub yourself down in a scalding hot shower afterwards.
We met the first contestant at a coffee shop down the block. He was a tiny Vietnamese man wearing a tie that was too large for him, giving the impression he was playing dress-up. We all shook hands and he plunged right to the heart of the matter by asking, "You eat bacon with rice?"
I just stood frozen with my mouth half open, trying to figure out a proper reply. I turned to Tom helplessly just as he said, "Yes, we're looking in Beacon Hill."
From then on, it was like the men spoke their own language and I just sat back completely baffled. One of my best friends is Vietnamese and when we were kids she had approximately seventeen hundred uncles who hung out at her house and spoke exactly like this guy. I never knew what they were saying, either - nor could I tell any of them apart to at least give a sense of continuity. I just smiled and nodded when they spoke to me. I had no idea what this man was saying to me but somehow Tom understood everything. I began to wonder if it wasn't an American/Vietnamese thing but a boy/girl thing, because it worked both ways. At one point in the proceedings, when I managed to kind of figure out what was going on, I leaned forward and asked, "Is the interest rate you are presenting today the final rate, or will that change?" And the guy adopted the exact same expression I had worn for the entire conversation, finally looking to Tom, who kindly translated, "Is the interest rate you are presenting today the final rate, or will that change?" The man looked immensely relieved and answered the question with a meaningless string of jibberish while Tom nodded in thoughtful comprehension.
We left that meeting no wiser than when we started, but several inches of paperwork wealthier.
Over the next few weeks we met with more lenders until we had acquired enough paperwork to wallpaper our entire apartment. We felt fairly confident at this point that someone would lend us some money although we were still pretty unclear as to how that works, exactly. But nevermind the petty details. On to the fun part - the realtor.
I imagine realtor school would go something like this:
Instructor: "KAREN! What did they teach you in Make-Up Application 101? I can actually SEE your facial features. And those shoes! Somebody get me the tape measure! What are those, three inch heels? Higher, higher! You should not be able to breathe in this atmosphere. We want those stilettos to SING on the hardwood floors and Mexican tile. At this point, I think you really need to ask yourself if you're cut out for this business."
Our real estate agent obviously passed real estate school with flying colors. And she was gorgeous, which just makes sense. You don't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars based on what an ugly person tells you.
So what we found out in that first meeting is this:
1) We can afford a house that is 700 square feet in a nice area of town. Who builds such small houses anyway? Why not just carry around a tent or live out of your car? You can buy a Hummer for less and get more closet space.
2) We can afford a large house in a slum. We saw a house for $470,000 located in a ghetto. The cars on the block were all that matte kind of paint and the windows were blown out and taped over.
3) We can afford a nice house in a different county than the one in which we work.
4) We can afford a small-but-liveable house in a semi-decent "up and coming" neighborhood which would require updating the kitchen and bathrooms last installed around 1948.
After the others, option #4 seems like the best bet so that's what we're targeting. We start officially in-person house-hunting next week. However, that hasn't stopped me from already designing and pricing new kitchens online, despite the fact that we don't know if our house will HAVE a kitchen at these rock-bottom prices of four hundred grand.
You can't have everything.
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