Room to Grow
- Mike P
- Sep 22, 2020
- 5 min read
We weren't planning on buying a house during a pandemic. Admittedly, we had been saving for years, but the that was with the plan of buying in 2021. Usually, we're pretty good about making and then sticking to plans; but the times necessitated a new one.
Our wedding hammock, a gift from a family member, in our back yard.
We were living in a basement apartment that was very nicely updated and in a great location, and were hoping to scrape enough together by the end of 2020 to start looking in Spring 2021. That timing made sense when we started the lease in 2019, but as we spent more time living underground, it became apparent that while technically sustainable, this location was perhaps not going to cut it. It was cold (we didn't control the thermostat), the floors were tile (= more cold), it was dark (only French doors to enter and one tiny window), and tons of insects would come in from outside (because of the French doors, it turns out). Then, the city started coming into the yard to do maintenance on the adjacent creek (putting in new sewer lines, we believe). They were cutting metal early in the mornings, had pumps running 24/7, dumping tons of rock, cutting down trees, and literally put a port-o-john directly in front of our only entrance (at which my wife's desk was set up to look). She could no longer look out of the only portal to the outside without seeing that gray garrison of the formerly gastrointestinal. I've lived in some pretty crappy apartments, so I didn't mind all of this much, but I could tell that my wife was near her limit.
Property of the Potter's Potties company, peeking at our patio.
Now, from a timing perspective, we had the choice to renew our lease during Summer 2020, or to go out looking for a new place. The first option was of course easiest, but I think my wife would have been miserably resigned to that. The second was a lot more work, would likely be more expensive, and also had the added hassle of moving. So, neither option seemed great. That Spring, we had begun to weigh our options, and then the pandemic happened.
When we were displaced from our usual offices, it made most sense for us to go and live with her parents - that way we could see them a lot and avoid working from home in that cold basement. My office at her parents' house was actually also in the basement, but at least my wife could work upstairs where she was able to see the sun once in a while. As all of this was happening - the stock market crashing, interest rates plummeting, living with our parents, and basically no longer spending any money - it began to seem like a better and better idea to reassess our timeline to buying a home. To be up front, I had already been looking into this because I had seen some economic indicators of trouble in late 2019. I had reallocated a lot of our investments into safer assets, gotten a few quotes for loans, and started to crunch the numbers. I was doing my homework, and it just so happened that the pandemic brought a pop-quiz for which I was well prepared.
Both of us are from humble backgrounds, so shopping for a home in Northern Virginia had always seemed daunting. But we had gone to enough open houses over the past year and done enough research that we knew what we needed to in order to ramp up our seriousness quickly. As interest rates plummeted and people started backing out of sales, there were suddenly houses sitting on the market without their usual competition, and we had already been pre-approved for loans.
After living through 10+ years of (often crappy) apartments, driving old, beat-up cars, putting every extra cent toward paying off student debt, and living on what little we had left, making an offer on a house in such an uncertain situation was certainly a leap of faith. We have never been risky with our funds, and while we had prepared, it still felt like we were taking a huge risk going in on a loan in such a turbulent economy. Many hours were spent rechecking our work, talking through pros and cons, and praying.
Open houses were hard to get into, some being only by appointment. We actually made an offer on a home that was rejected, and were pretty discouraged by that experience. But we were persistent, and eventually we found a place that met what we needed, where we needed, and was in our budget. So now, after having lived in 13 apartments in 5 different states (between the two of us) over the last decade, we finally have a place to call home.
We moved in about three months ago, and my wife is still saying "what a cute house" as we pull up to the driveway. She has a window in her office that looks out at our backyard, a sunroom where she can sit in the early morning rays sipping her coffee, and window sills for her orchids (which are also much "happier" now, in her words). We have been incredibly fortunate to get here, to be able to pounce at the right time, and to have not run into major issues along the way. And we certainly don't overlook the fact that many people in the country and world are struggling right now - what right do we have to luck out in the ways we did? All I can say is that sometimes luck comes to those who are prepared, and we got more of it than we could have imagined.
"The bunny"
While there's now a million things on my "to-do" list, as someone who loves that feeling of doing something and completing it, that makes it more like a treasure map. We now both have office space at home (and not in the basement!), which has been a huge help in being able to stay productive in this new era of mandatory telework. Our yard has bunnies and there is an ice cream truck that drives around the neighborhood (inexplicably playing an adaptation of Dance the Night Away by J-Lo, ft. Pitbull). We even still have a room with nothing in it yet because we don't have anything to put there! While we eagerly await the subsiding of the pandemic and the ability to see friends, family, and coworkers again, we're blessed to be together and in good health and are counting those blessings. Our souls grow a little more every day that we get to spend together and put our roots a little deeper.
And it doesn't hurt that we no longer have a port-o-john for a lawn ornament.
Not sure how they chose this song, but it's certainly memorable.
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