On September 25, 2003 we closed on a townhouse in Mid-City area Los Angeles and moved in later that day. Our new place was 1300ft2, with three large bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and a little patio in the back.
Although we loved it and made it nice with French doors, mouldings and jasmine bushes, (and Christmas decorations I was too lazy to take down) it never really felt like home. The price was good, the size was great, and it was close to Ian's work and my freelance jobs, but the community wasn't there. Our ward only had one other young couple (One!) and they had both grown up in the area and weren't looking for friends. Our neighbors were nice but despite our dinner invitations we never did get close. I organized a book club but for some reason it never came together. After having Caleb and Julian the lack of parks within a 15 minute drive radius, high curbs, steep hills, and three flights of stairs between the bedrooms and the car garage made it maddening. One day I almost tripped on the stairs and dropped my kids. We knew it was time to move.
In 2007 prices were threw the roof and all the way to the moon. So we sold our home and moved into an apartment to rent until we figured out what to do.
Three years later we're still here and confused as ever about where to move. We love the area that we live in now, and would love to stay, but we're still renting. The whole time we've been here we've thinking about what to do for a permanent solution. It's been on our minds more and more as our kids are approaching school age (we've only got 19 months before that happens!) Ian's got job options here and so we're committed to Los Angeles. While living here is amazing, it's not easy. To organize ourselves we've come up with a house hunting list, things that we are taking into account:
a. proximity to work. We'd love for Ian to have a short commute so he can be home with us a lot
b. a reasonable price, we're looking for something that's going to stretch us, not sink us. Having proceeds from our 2007 sale help us out, but not as much as we'd like.
c. a great community and ward with lots of young families; this usually comes with good school options
d. good lot size. It's been a dream of ours to have a big yard for playing, gardening, and cooking in a wood burning brick oven.
e. house quality- size, age, repair status, etc.
courtyard of our old place-didn't think we'd still be sharing walls with people!Most people would take one look at that list and tell us the only way to find all that is out of LA. A few years ago when my cousin and her family, living in Canada, moved out of their townhouse they just drove around one night to look at houses and bought the first one they were interested in. It was less than a mile from her husband's work, an older house of modest but comfortable size spruced up from a recent flip with a great yard. The price was manageable. They got everything on my list in only a couple weeks! But... they're living in a less desirable climate than LA, so we all give up something. What's it going to be for us?
A friend of mine said that she's not going to buy a home until everything really lines up and it feels just exactly right. I couldn't help but think that she's NEVER going to get something in LA, but obviously squeezing into a less than perfect situation can have unhappy effects: see example above. Since no situation is ever going to be perfect; how do you know when it's good enough? We really thought that our years of searching were coming to a close when we put in an offer on this little gem a few weeks ago:
2540 Midvale Ave
This cutey is right in the area we live now. It has a huge yard but even with 3 bedrooms it's tiny- 1,000 ft2 (reminds me of a Manhattan apartment. In fact I've seen smaller families than ours living in bigger Manhattan apartments). After first seeing it we decided to pass, the size would be too much of a downgrade from our apartment now. But the day after the open house the realtor called me and he said the owners might be interested in a lowball offer. "The place has been on the market for four months and other prospective buyers are having financing issues. Not enough downpayment..." he said. And I started thinking. That kitchen window does look out the backyard, and there's a mature lemon tree and avocado tree back there, and the yard could easily handle a garden, a play area and brick oven ... the current owner had some preliminary plans drawn up for an addition and with the new price it all just might work out.
Could our years of patiently holding onto our downpayment actually be paying off? Is this the miracle we've been waiting for all this time? The prices were finally, barely, in our range and we could qualify for a loan where others with less savings couldn't. I went and knocked on the neighbors' doors, and the more we talked the more we liked what we heard. That little pocket was a good mix of young families and old timers who had raised their kids there. Just 10minutes from Ian's work, it was seriously right around the corner from a great mall with a movie theater and a Barnes and Noble and Starbucks- a walkable community which I like. The school was great, and it was just blocks from several families we are friends with. We looked into building additions and talked to contractors to make the house more livable. Ian got really excited about building a brick oven in the backyard.
Suddenly, just as we were getting ready to put in our offer, someone beat us to it. They saw the house, put in an offer and went into escrow all on the same day.
We were devastated, but the realtor told us there was hope. This offer came from folks who only had a 3.5% downpayment and were carrying a lot of debt so there was a high possibility they wouldn't get a loan- we'd know in 17 days. So we got pre-qualified on a loan and put in our offer. And we asked everybody to pray for us. And for two weeks we could think of nothing else, talk of nothing else, dream about nothing else.
After a week we got a counter offer from the owners. Their accepted offer was having a lot of trouble securing their loan- we could get this house!! But we were also a big disheartened. They wanted us to come up on our price, their current accepted offer was 50,000 over ours! And with all the additions we were looking to do on the house we were quickly falling out of the affordable zone. We also started thinking about the area- we love it, but how many of our friends will be here in a few years? It's a really expensive area. Many young families like ours on one income just couldn't afford to live here long term.
And the more we thought about having to do additions, the more we realized it could be a disaster. These additions would require a ton of research on flooring, windows, roofing, insulation, planning with contractors, applying for permits... we're already running at maximum capacity so where were we going to find the time to do all that? We knew our boys would absolutely love to have a yard, but what they really need is access to us. If we were haggling with sub-contractors and dealing with foundation problems... I saw myself becoming short tempered and moody, my kids feeling confused and unloved. Skipping the additions and living in it as is with all of us, well, that was going to be stressful too. Little closet space, one teeny bathroom, the dining area and living room practically the same...
Would we really be happier here?
We decided not, and never did get in our final counter. Later the realtor told us that the loan had come through at the very last minute, extending beyond the optional 48 hours after the 17 day loan contingency- and the house had sold. I could go on about banks giving people loans who have no business getting them, and how all this debt is making life hard for our entire society because it makes our house prices go up, our taxes go up, it makes more families with both parents have to work, and it prices out the responsible ones who have a real downpayment and don't want to overextend themselves... But that's a topic for another post.
So anyways, the house hunt is on, for real this time, and it's taking us into the belly of the beast.
To Be Continued...
Posts
