The Home Shopping Process

Searching for house #3 can only be likened to the most exhausting, full time job, ever.  I swear, I don't remember it being this exhausting when we looked for our first two homes.  Mike laughs every time I say this and accuses me of wearing rose colored glasses.

Oh to be young and naive (and skinny) again.

The search for house #1 occurred when we were engaged and childless, or as Mike calls it, "young and naive."  So, I guess the bliss of embarking on two of life's journeys together overshadows any trouble we had.  I think we looked at a dozen homes before finding our first home.  Granted, those dozen were memorable:  the one with the bomb shelter being my favorite (Mike still maintains it would have made a cool fort).

Our first home

The search for house #2 occurred when Mikie was two.  He had boundless amounts of energy, but was always happy and was pretty content to sit in the back of our car, and watch DVDs.  Our agent, Sue, would take us through individually, and then we would compare notes curb side so that we didn't inconvenience Mikie.  And, in hindsight, we didn't spend much time in the car.  We knew we wanted to live in Sutton, Northbridge, or Grafton.  So, we focused on homes in three neighboring towns.  We could accomplish a lot in a few hours.  The only frustration came from the seller of the first home we put an offer in on causing a bidding war to try and drive up the price.  Ultimately, we walked away, found a house we loved even more.  And, karma came back to haunt them:  three days after we walked away (one day after we put an offer on our current home) they called us to see if we were still interested in the house.  Apparently, their buyer couldn't get financing and backed out.  They were on the market for another six months and sold for significantly less than we offered them.

Our second home

The search for house #3. . . where do I begin?  First, we made the process infinitely more challenging because we refused to focus on one town.  We agreed up front that our must have was an amazing school system in a town that has a good history of passing it's override.  We did not want to move only to find ourselves in a school district in jeopardy of losing its accreditation due to lack of funds.  While many people have extolled the virtues of catholic or private school, we agreed before we had kids that we saw a lot of benefits to public school education.  And, having looked into private school four years ago, we know that the cost of tuition times two kids times twelve years is enough to (1) buy another house or (2) send a kid to college.  So, we agreed that we would sacrifice on other things to ensure we were moving into a great school system.

Second, having lived in our beautiful home for the last six years, we had lofty standards for a prospective new home to meet:

• central air conditioning for our allergies
• two car garage because we live in New England
• at least three bedrooms plus a separate office, or four bedrooms if there is no separate office
• at least two full bathrooms (because Hannah and I will not survive if we have to share a bathroom when she is a teenager)
• ideally gas heat, because we spend a fortune on oil to heat our current house

Those were the big wants.  We probably also asked for at least 2400 sq. ft. on at least a third of an acre of land, but I can't remember.

From January to March, we stalked homes.  Literally.  We both had every real estate app.  We would look at properties and night and star ones we liked.  On March 13th, we accepted an offer on our house.  Within an hour, I called our agent to request showings of a new construction that had been listed on March 12th.  She called me back to tell me it was already under contract.  In 24 hours.

Initially, I dismissed this little detail because it was a new construction at a really great price.  The other house the builder sold in that  development had sold for $250K MORE.

In our efforts to reduce strain on the kids, we went to showings in the middle of the day while they were in school.  Not super convenient since we both work full time, but our employers seemed to recognize it was a short term issue.  What we quickly realized was there was so little inventory that EVERY home was selling within 24-48 hours.  For example, the first house we put an offer on, we were one of 20 couples to walk through in the first 24 hours.  And, we were one of at least three people bidding on it.  Second example:  my boss told me his wife's friend was selling her home on Facebook if I was interested.  I scoffed and said, "she'll never succeed with that approach. . . I'll look at it this weekend if I don't find anything else."  It was under contract within 3 days.  Anything that wasn't sold in a week made you wonder "what's wrong with it?"

For five and a half weeks, we searched.  Every night, we culled through listings.  On Thursdays and Fridays, I would spend my entire lunch looking at what came on-line that morning (realizing most agent listed on Thursday or Friday, had an open house on Saturday and/or Sunday, and accepted offers on Monday).  I dropped everything to see house in the middle of the day if our agent, Alison, could get an appointment.  And, we saw a LOT of homes.  Three we liked enough to put offers on (two of which were obviously not accepted).  I lost count on how many I walked through.  I plotted out Sunday's packed with open houses scattered across towns 15 miles apart and dragged Mike and the kids to them (because, with the amount of gas I was using to look for homes, I couldn't waste money on a babysitter).  Last weekend, I dragged Mike to see six homes.  He still has to look at the pictures to remember what we bought.

And, we are currently dealing with the little snafu of "what do we do between houses?"  We (fingers crossed) are scheduled to close on our house on Monday and rent back through June 2nd.  But, we can't close on the new house before June 25th. So, for 3 weeks, we will be homeless.  We are hoping to negotiate with our buyers to move out after school ends (June 21st) so that Mikie can finish school in Northbridge.  Then, we can spend an extended weekend at a hotel near the new house.  But, if we are unsuccessful, we will be renting a hotel through the 21st near Northbridge, moving all of our stuff into storage for three weeks, then moving to a hotel near the new house for a long weekend before we close and move in.

So, where are we moving?  We will be moving to Andover, about 20 miles North of Boston.  You can click here to watch the video tour, or just check out some of the pictures below:

Our home-to-be

Living room

Dining room

Kitchen

I refuse to say that this will be the last time we move, because, every time I have said that in the past, we move within 5-10 years.  I just hope that if we ever move again, the kids are both old enough to stay home by themselves!

Love, The Trahans