So, a lot has happened: House Hunt

Posted by kara

Oh dear, where to start. After figuring out that renting would be a bummer (not much cheaper, not much selection), we decided to house hunt. We have been looking at listings regularly since January, so by the time April arrived, we were chomping at the bit.

We have been craving a mid-century modern house. We almost got one right before we left Indy seven years ago, so it was always hanging in the back of our heads. We met up with the MCM realtor: Joe. He was a pretty cool dude and definitely knew what he was talking about. He picked out all the same houses we did and knew about them. We probably went out looking at houses six times with him, but each time, it felt so roller coastery.

The first house we looked at, we really liked. However, after asking our advisory board (architects/contractors) what it would take to fix, I was pretty uncomfortable even making a bid. It felt like there was money pit potential. We didn’t bid on it, and heard that someone had bid higher than we would have and was rejected.

Then we saw one that was way out of our price range. However, it was in a great neighborhood, had tons of potential, and had been on the market for a long time. I really liked it online, and in person, I was over the moon. Paul liked it too after seeing it in person. We gathered up our architects and asked them their opinions. After taking into consideration the costs, we put in our bid, which was pretty much ignored. That was a blow, but I figured it wasn’t meant to be and it just is flat out of our price range.

We saw lots of houses. I felt defeated most of the time. I would check listings all day long, and my standards would get washed down more and more. Sometimes I would get really excited about a listing, and I’d show it to Paul and then get an email a few minutes later from Joe about the same house. My hopes would go up, and then the house would pend before we even got to Indy. Ugh. Or the price was way off. Or it was in a terrible school district. So much wasn’t lining up. In my head I knew it would take months to find a house, but in my heart I believed I would find it right away. So, at the end of May, I was ready to throw in the towel and look at rentals so we could figure out schools and doctors.

Then in our last weekend of looking, we went out one more time. I was just coming around to the idea that I actually didn’t want a ranch. I also was realizing (Paul knew this way before I did) that I really wanted more space than most MCM houses had. So we saw a MCM house that needed a ton of work and was tiny. Maybe okay. Then we saw a huge crazy house that was fun because it was crazy weird, but not really us. Then we saw a house that Joe had picked out for us. It was one that I had shown to Paul, but he said no to it. It was three doors down from Paul’s cousin Andy. We looked at it and it was a lot cooler in person. The kitchen was awesome, with the updates that I would have picked out. The house had an interesting layout where the back half of the house was sunk down four steps lower than the front half of the house. Also, it was beautifully furnished and decorated. I was really thinking about it, but not quite sure because it was so different from what I thought we would get. Then we saw another house that was nice, but just not quite it.

We went out to dinner with Sarah and Greg, and Greg said we should “snag it.” That night we put in an offer at midnight (really hard to decide if we should or not), and they accepted! It turns out we were up against at least two other bids, and that was just after two days on the market. The inspection went well, and the sellers were on the up-and-up about everything. The house was very clean when we moved in, and the sellers gave us a nice bottle of wine.

The move was smooth. We had a kind strong helper in Toledo who helped Paul move all the heavy stuff. And in Indy, we had all the family help (including our parents) and it was sooo helpful. It was overwhelming, but by the time everyone left, it was mostly unpacked!

We have a house! And it feels good!