Decisions

I did make a decision, which seems particularly appropriate today.  Today the house with the view sold to another person, not me, which doesn't feel so bad because I have now chosen another house, not it.  Sure, I would still have loved to buy it but I now understand, not just intellectually but even emotionally, that it just wasn't possible.  It seemed perfect but, in fact, was not.  The buyers got it for $485K (cash!), which is significantly less than the price I had agreed to pay ($535K), but still above the appraised valued ($460K), which was realistically, given my financial constraints and common sense, as low as I could go.  So good for the buyers, the elderly artists who I never met -- may they go on to have long, colorful, lives punctuated with electricity-free chandeliers and bathtubs in the middle of their bathrooms in their new home, and let's hope the new owners of their gorgeous old home have the bank account and wherewithal to bring it back to snuff.

In the meantime, back in my little real estate world, I've decided to buy the red house.  I did go look at the condo on Park Street on Monday and liked it a lot -- good location, great yard and pool, nicely renovated, enough room for the two of us, a bit of a view off the master bedroom deck.  But I liked it a lot for someone else other than us -- it seemed to me perfect for an older couple like the people who were selling it.  For us, it wouldn't work -- the second bedroom was too small for Kanha to have space for her bed and her desk and her stuffed animals and her arts and crafts supplies and her visiting friends, there was no outdoor space close-by big enough for us to eat dinners outside, and no other kids live there for Kanha to make some friends and me to feel like we fit. 

With the red house, we'll be able to put our stamp on it -- choose the floors and paint colors for the third floor, add a window or two, design a fancy shower, redesign the kitchen, relandscape the front yard for a little more privacy.  As they say, "the bones" are good, and the unfun renovation work has been done -- now we can make it our own.  

Hopefully I'll hear from the sellers tomorrow -- they've been away for her brother's funeral, sadly, therefore the delay -- and we'll be able to sign a contract by the weekend and I can get all the details -- the inspection, insurance, mortgage application --  in motion again.  I'm also hoping for good news about a move-in date;  if the tenants -- the mom and her two little little kids --  in the big part of the house liked the apartment they visited this weekend, they may be moving as soon as two weeks from now, and perhaps (!) we'll be able to move in soon after (as short-term tenants ourselves) even before we close.  A major step forward in simplifying my life.  

I'm not swinging from the rafters like I probably would have been if things were moving forward on the house with the view -- which of course would have left me flat on my butt on the floor because the rafters would have come crashing down after thirty years of no upkeep.  So better to be feeling relieved and serene and hopeful.  We should have a new home soon.