Browsing vs. Buying

I never really thought much about homeownership. I’m the kind of girl that buys old cars that are odd colors just so I do not have to have a car payment. I do not like to be tied down. But now that I’m married and we have spent the last year gallivanting around the country, there seems to be a certain charm to the idea of settling down. The interesting thing though is that when you decide to start settling down, if you have never really thought about it before, you don’t really have a good idea about how to go about becoming a settled person. Don’t get me wrong…I love cute little houses and darling little yards, and even though I regularly point them out while we’re driving around, as far as my personal life is concerned, I had mentally gotten about this far—buy a house.

I am learning that it gets decidedly more complicated when you actually try to go buy one. First of all, there is the little matter of what to do first. Some people recommend that you get pre-approved for your loan. How you do this, however, is quite another matter. My favorite conversation about this topic was with my father. When I asked him about getting pre-approved and shopping for interest rates, he said something about how the newspaper used to print current interest rates and I could check there. Yeah…I’m thinking that my blackberry-toting father probably hasn’t done this in a while. Others recommend that you find an agent. Still others suggest that you take time and really scope out the areas. Some even suggest you live somewhere for a year first.

Then there are the more quality of life things like the type of house including layout, color, lot size, etc. And then there is the issue of where in this vast world that is the greater Los Angeles area would I want to live. Which highway views do I prefer to see while I’m stuck in traffic during my commute?
And in the midst of all of this there is the ever-clearer-growing distinction between talking about buying a house and actually buying a house. I drove past a house the other day that heretofore would have garnered an “oh, that is so cute…I would love to have a house like that “ from me. But this time I actually looked it. That tiny house…right, like anyone but Ken and Barbie could comfortably fit in there. Buying versus browsing…ah the differences.

You also see neighborhoods in a whole new light when you are thinking about actually plunking down your own hard-earned cash for a domicile. What before may have been like a “Hmmm…well the yards could use some improvement and it would be nice if more people kept up their paint, but it is a fixer-upper” conversation quickly turns into, “Did you see all those bars on the windows last time we drove through here? Lock the doors.”

When I moved to LA, I thought I would be choosing a house. You know…selecting. Like when you read a real estate ad in Atlanta or small-town Iowa about amenities such as granite countertops, two-car garages, an alarm system, and a yard, you think, “Great, I’ll have to check it out and see if it is the color granite I like or if the two-car garage is large enough for my two SUVs.
Here…they do not list amenities like that in our price-range. Here the scenario is more like. There is a structure in our price range. Let’s go see it. If it doesn’t look like it is right in the center of gang territory or it doesn’t need to be razed, let’s call someone to look at it. It doesn’t have countertops? That’s ok. I hear they are overrated anyway.
 We joked the other day that we just wanted to find a house that we could have our parents come to, rather than having to meet them at a hotel. Even a girl who never wanted to settle down has to have standards.