We are all three in the process of or contemplating upsizing in the DC metro.
Sounds great, right? It's not.
See, the DC housing market is crazy competitive. As my girlfriend L said, "it's frustrating to be well educated, well employed, responsible with money and still be hurting" when it comes to purchasing a house.
Quite frankly, it's depressing.
John and I are shopping with what once was my ideal budget. I always imagined that when we got to this point, we would be purchasing our "dream home".
We aren't.
To give you a little perspective, on Saturday we looked at a 2300 sq foot house with original 1930s era kitchen and baths, a garage that had a tree crash in half of it, located half a block from a busy intersection and... NO AC. The asking price? More than we paid for our last 3 houses... COMBINED.
And I actually thought it was a "possible", until I realized that the couple who was looking at the house when we arrived had sat down at the dining room table to write an offer.
Competing in a bidding war goes against my core beliefs, so I instantly crossed it off.
Plus the lady writing the offer looked like she would cut a bitch if I crossed her. She had angry stalker eyes. And I'm pretty certain she wrote down our license plate number before she left. So I decided not to cross her.
At this point, I have been on 11 different shopping expeditions.
Which may not seem like a lot, but factor in the fact that every time I go to the metro to house shop I have to: find child care for the munchkins, drive two hours, spend roughly 3-5 hours slogging from house to house, then drive 2 hours home, and it becomes an exhausting prospect. I skipped that first step ONCE, and regretted the choice immensely.
Know what's worse than peeling Sterling off of my stuff? Peeling her off of someone else's extremely expensive, professionally arranged stuff.
While juggling Bennett the wonder chunk.
Good times.
Which is why going without AC when you are living in a swamp no longer feels like a major deal. I mean humidity is good for the pores, right? It would be like I spent every night at a spa, just more expensive. And without the whole "luxury" thing. But other than that, pretty much the same.
Right now I have essentially two options:
1. Lower my expectations. Like "wow, that cardboard box really has character" lower.
2. Move so far outside the metro that distance is measured not in miles, but in hours driving.
And it is really hard to commit to something you are lukewarm on because the market turns over so rapidly in DC that you are always thinking "maybe the perfect house will come up tomorrow" in the back of your mind.
So the search continues. Hopefully someone puts a house on the market tonight and accidentally leaves a zero off their asking price. And they don't realize it until after the closing. Because they are so independently wealthy that the extra zero doesn't really mean anything to them. And are secretly happy that they are helping a lovely family like us.
Sounds likely, right? Because otherwise, I am looking at more "quirky" properties...
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