Wednesday, February 15, 2012

My Two Houses

I couldn't sleep last night. At 1 a.m. I gave up and popped one of my varied of "sleep aids" and finally fell into the kind of unconscious slumber that I don't find restorative but at least gives my brain a break. You guys, why don't I have an offer on my house? I know it's only been six days, my rational brain understands this and is not really concerned about it (yet), but I've never sold a house and my irrational sleepy time brain wonders how we've had TWENTY-NINE individual showings, and THIRTY-ONE groups at the open house, and not one offer. Do people normally take longer to make decisions than JP and me? We saw our current house once for 10-12 minutes and made an offer that evening. We saw our future house once for 8-10 minutes while chasing two kids and made an offer the next day. My irrational brain seizes on this as normal behavior and concludes that obviously, with all these people not making a major decision within hours of seeing our house, it will NEVER EVER sell.

Then I wake up and shake it off and remember that we're only on Day 6 here, and we have three more showings lined up for today and tomorrow. It's going to be okay. We can float two mortgages for a while if necessary, we can lease the house if we want to (apparently our rental market is even hotter than our sale market), and again, it's only been six days. Calm the fck down. And I do.

Because even in my irrational 1 a.m. state, I don't regret putting an offer on this house. I've had alerts on the neighborhoods around downtown since I first thought about this job in October. I know this house is unique, I know it's extremely well priced and even better located. I know there is no other house on the market we'd consider buying. I know we would have searched for this exact house in every other house we looked at over the next several months and never found it. JP, who pretty much leaves this stuff to me because I'm way pickier than him and my small sliver of "acceptable" homes lives inside his far broader swath of "sure, it looks fine," immediately wanted to contact the agent when I showed him the online tour three weeks ago. And when he walked inside on Saturday he turned to our agent and said, "this is it, how do we make an offer?". And since he'll be working from home and living inside these walls way more than the rest of us, I love that he loves it as much as I do. I just- I see us living here and I love what I see.


the giant tree in the front that started the love affair


kitchen (at the back of the room is the current casual dining/future Landon/Claire play area)


living room/front door


living/dining



family room with the square window that clinched the love affair



master (off casual family room)



master



master bath/sky lights!


Landon and Claire's room with attached bath


[the bigger, prettier guest room is oddly not pictured, but it will be the guest room and JP's office and has a corner bank of windows that looks at the front yard and giant tree]


sun room (another potential future play space, art table?)


back deck and windows


pool/yard


Fort Worth is a marvelously inexpensive town. We could never afford this house in Austin (or anywhere else), particularly one only 4-5 miles from downtown. So I don't regret the frantic offer, but the bags under my eyes would really appreciate it if someone would make an offer on our Austin house. It's lovely, but it's not the second home I'm looking for (that would be located far in the future and in a ski town).

Also, re: the comments on the pool. It was something we originally had on our "no" list for all the reasons people mentioned- young kids, maintenance, etc. But we're losing our beautiful, oft-frequented neighborhood pool, and we decided with our 110 degree summers and my aversion to gyms, we might really enjoy having one in our own backyard. And, honestly, we just flat out fell in love with the house- the pool barely factored in the decision. We're researching gates and other safety systems, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

34 comments:

  1. That would be a million-dollar house around here.

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    1. Isn't it crazy how much it can vary? Even in Austin it would be doubled (though still way less than your neck of the woods)!

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  2. Make me cry. How much is that house?

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    1. Ha, don't cry, but under $400k.

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    2. I am in Los Angeles. I am wincing in pain. lol. That would easily cost over a million in my neck of the woods. I am insanely jealous. Congrats!

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    3. Gah. In my neighborhood, $400k gets you a 2 bd condo in a terrible neighborhood at best. I need to get back to Texas asap! This house is stellar.

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    4. Wow, amazing. We just spent barely less than $400K on our first house in greater Boston, and while we love it, it doesn't come close to as nice as your new home!

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    5. I think we all just decided to move to Texas. Having only lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Boston, I had no idea a gorgeous house could cost so little!

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  3. I'm currently in the home buying process, too. I found THE house and immediately knew it, from both the listing and then, again, when I walked in to it with my realtor. However, I still waited two weeks, one more visit to that house and visits to 15 other houses before I was ready to make the offer. So, I bet someone who visited your house is going to make an offer... they might just be slow like me and carefully considering it first! Good luck! The house looks amazing!

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    1. I can't tell you how helpful this comment was to my irrational brain. I just called JP and read it to him too.

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  4. Such an awesome-looking house! So unique and vibrant, and I love the open floor plans. That master bedroom is amazing!

    How many square feet is the house?

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    1. 2800, in large part due to the addition of the master suite about a decade ago. It also houses the mudroom/laundry room, a huge hallway closet, and a separate half bath with direct access to the pool. It's actually more square footage than we were looking for, but our love had no bounds (well, besides price, that was a firm bound).

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  5. Is it 3 bedrooms? What are your plans for when the kids are older? it is a beautiful house. Jealous!

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    1. Sorry, missed this one (I'm trying to block my no-offer-anxiety by distracting myself on the internet, can you tell?) -- I pretty much answered it below. It is 3 bedrooms and after 4-5 years, if we're still in the house/Ft Worth, we'll move one kid over to the 3rd bedroom and kick JP out to the family room or sunroom (or, more likely, he'll have kicked himself out by obtaining a job in Ft Worth, OR we'll be in another city because I've transferred within the SEC or he's found his dream job somewhere else). And thanks!

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  6. So happy for you LL!! Don't panic on the house...it will sell soon! We moved 8 times in 11 years and we NEVER made an offer for at least a week after we saw a house we liked. The difference may be that I'm married to an engineer and he had to see everything on the market...analyze it...have it inspected and them wait a few more days to make the offer. Try to relax...you "old" home is gorgeous and someone is going to fall in love with it just like you did with your "new" home!!! Best wishes with the move!!

    Patty from TX

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    1. Thanks Patty! I'm still so glad we got to accidentally meet in the church foyer, it's so nice to picture a face when I read the familiar "Patty" from TX tagline :)

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  7. Love the house.
    As for the pool - it's Texas. Tons of children grow up with pools and live to tell about it. I was going off the diving board when I was two years old. (True story - July 1987. My parents had just brought little brother home from the hospital and my mom looks up and in to the backyard and my father is STANDING NEXT TO THE POOL letter the 26 month old jump in to the pool by herself).

    Your husband is a swimmer/swim instructor. If any children will be well equipped to safely live in a home with a swimming pool, it'll be Landon and Claire.

    As for safety devices - my dad (he's a homebuilder!) absolutely despises the gates around the pools. They're so ugly and distracting, especially when the rest of the house and yard is so pretty. I think when they build houses for families with small children they generally install an alarm on the back door leading to the pool. So if a wandering kid decides to open the door and head outside - an alarm sounds to let the adults now. The alarm is high up and you just press a little button on it before you open the door to let the dogs out, etc. Kids can't reach the button to turn the alarm off to wander outside.

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    1. Leg fab, I know we just emailed, but as long as I'm being all bloggy responsive today, I thought I'd add that I have now ordered two of those alarms. And I expect a visit from you next time you come home. I'll provide the margaritas and the Clairebear.

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  8. I love the contemporary look and the backyard is stunning. Quick question: Landon and Claire share a room? How did you make that happen? We've got a 3 year old and expecting another (ok, twins), and don't want to move... when did you put them all together? How did Landon take it?

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    1. Thank you! L&C don't currently share a room, but we've always planned to move Claire in with him once she graduated to a big girl bed. Landon has two twins in his room (they're the set my sister and I slept in when we shared a room as little kids) and he actually thought Claire was going to sleep with him the night we brought her home from the hospital. He was crushed when she slept in our room and then the nursery, so he's SUPER excited that they'll be sharing a room in "that new place with the pool." (his name for Fort Worth generally/the new house)

      They shared a room on vacation and it went really well. We put them to bed at the exact same time now and they both sleep like adorable little rocks- we've had loud parties downstairs and never heard a peep until 11.5 hours later, so I'm optimistic! We promised Landon a bunk bed after the move, so we'll probably get him one for Christmas, which would be about time to move Claire from the crib to the bottom bunk!

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  9. Could you potentially make a bigger profit off of leasing the house? Maybe that's not a horrible idea! Either way, congrats - the new house is beautiful!! :)

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    1. It's a great idea and I was totally sold on it until I realized, we can't make a proper down payment on a new house without the equity out of our current house, so that killed that plan. We're getting a "bridge" loan from a generous aunt and uncle (who fell in love with the house even harder than we did and basically said you HAVE TO BUY IT over a series of text messages). So we can close thanks to them, but we need to pay them back and we want to do it as fast as possible.

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  10. Is it a three bedroom house? Does this mean that you have decided not to have anymore kids? Or will you move again? Gorgeous house!

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    1. It is. I'm 99.5% decided that our family is complete. JP is only 50% convinced. Either way, I think there will be a sizable gap between Claire and any potential baby #3 (which means we'll probably just want to do an even 4 to keep #3 company; I think it's equally likely that we'll have 4 kids as we'll have 3, but only 2% likely it will happen at all). I also think, if that were to happen, we'd use the 3rd bedroom as a bedroom and kick JP to the family room. There's also a good chance he will have found a job in Ft Worth by then, or we'll be moving on to our next adventure in a new city.

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  11. I know JP is a swim instructor but have you ever considered/heard about ISR (Infant Swim Rescue)? Teaches little ones "survival" swim/float techniques in case they happen to fall in. I can't speak from personal experience (my LO is only 7 months) but I do know some people who swear by it.

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  12. it's so gorgeous... congrats!

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  13. OMG is it so beautiful. I think I am in love with it too! I cannot wait to see pictures once you make it yours.

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  14. You only need one offer. Repeat: you only need one! Aaaannnd... breathe. It will happen.

    I agree with the previous poster about your potential buyer possibly having already seen your house. DH and I bought a charming old house that we fell in love with in the first viewing, but being first time homebuyers, I wanted my parents to see it. I know how that sounds, but my dad is the ultimate voice of reason. He lives in another state, so it took a few days for him to clear his schedule to come see "my house."

    Then, we had to coordinate things for the down payment, moving money between accounts and debating FHA loans and first-time homebuyer tax credits and then my real estate lawyer sister reviewed recent home sales in our neighborhood and weighed in with her advice AND I had to go to Home Restoration Hardware three times to look at paint chips while psyching myself up to be ballsy enough to ask for additional concessions because the driveway really needed to be repaved. So, it took us a solid three weeks to put an offer in our "love at first sight" house.

    I feel confident that your buyer is out there. She might be wandering around Home Restoration Hardware with her sister yammering away on a cell phone explaining AGAIN "how not to leave money on the table in a negotiation" while counting down the days until her dad can show up with his tape measure, but she's out there. Keep the faith.

    If you still want to feel like you're "doing something" to help sell the house, bury a statue of St. Joseph (patron saint of carpenters and adoptive/foster fathers) upside down in your front yard. ;)

    http://www.discountcatholicproducts.com/HOME-SALE-KITS-C398.aspx?gclid=CJ_ti4vloa4CFULe4AodexlqQw

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  15. LOVE the new house. Gorgeous light!

    Breathe easy -- you're on Day 6, that's not bad at all! And forget counting the open houses. When I sold my last house, I refused to do Open Houses because those are for folks doing lookie-sees, not necessarily looking to buy. Furthermore, REALTORS love open houses because most folks who come to them don't usually have a Realtor and that's why open houses are so popular (gives folks a chance to just look, without commitment to a Realtor.) In short, it gives the Realtor a chance to meet new clients. I am not saying that you shouldn't do open houses (i.e. I am not giving advice) but it was recommended to me not to do them. Obviously, my Realtor was NOT happy with me because I nixed his chance to meet new clients. Again, just my 2 cents to not sweat the open houses -- realistically, your buyer is going to come from an actual showing.

    Day 6 and so many showings?? That's awesome!! That means there is something very attractive about your house if so many folks are jumping at the chance to see it. To me, that's a GOOD thing.

    Pricing wise, it sounds like Fort Worth is in a similar market as Kansas City.

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  16. Your new home is beautiful! As someone who at one point owned 3 homes in 3 different states, I have to say my anxiety about you selling your current house is pretty high just by association. I think I have PTSD from my crazy situation (which would take too long to explain in your comments). Anyway, I'll echo others that have said a)it only takes one person and he/she is out there b)there are people who don't immiediately make up their minds on a house and make an offer (like you, I am not that person) c)(just based on my experience) it would be very odd to have that many showings on a property and not receive an offer. When our houses weren't selling, they weren't showing either (it was during the height of the housing crash). I don't know if your Austin realtor is doing this, but we found it helpful to get feedback from the (very few) showings that we did have. Some people would say love the house, hate the neighborhood (can't fix that) but others would say "price is too high" or something that was more constructive for us to use.

    Eventually, all of our "vacation" homes did sell and we now only own the house we live in. I won't lie, it made for some stressful times but we were able to swing it. I have confidence that everything is going to work out just great for you.

    Good Luck!

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  17. That is an incredibly beautiful house. We just sold our house, and it did take 2 months, but that included the holidays, plus our refusal to do anything to it, and it really needs stuff done to it. We just weren't in a hurry. So don't worry!

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  18. True and funny story: We lost out on a house because our old house didnt' sell. As a joke, my daughter brought home a tiny St. Joseph statue. That night, a couple came by to see the house (last minute appt). The next day, we buried St. Joseph, and the couple called to see the house the following day in the daytime. The day after, the offer came in. Now St. Joseph sits on our windowsill in our new place, looking down the street at the pretty church -- St. Mary's!

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  19. I read frequently but don't comment very often. However, I am a Federal agency attorney who has made similar choices to those your family is looking at now. We also just sold our home. It was interesting that we had a ton of showings right away - one couple stayed for over two hours. Then no offers. At one week, all of a sudden multiple offers came in the same day and we ended up selling for more than the asking price. I think for many people it takes being sure, especially now when financing can be difficult.

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  20. That house is absolutely breathtaking!!

    I'll be praying for your sleep to not be disrupted by house worries! I'm a bit behind so maybe you already have an offer, but I figure they couldn't hurt :).

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