Agent Smith and I started looking for a proper house in early 2014. We started checking out real estate listings online, hitting a few open houses, and researching various areas and issues related to the idea of buying property. This process was rather difficult because we had one singular requirement above all else–the new home must have an extensive garage or even two garages.
By mid-2014, we’d met a few real estate agents that were so-so and one that was just awesome; thankfully the one agreed to help us out. Our routine was a bit non-traditional–we would find properties on our favorite real estate site that looked interesting, flag them for review, consult with one another, and if there was a scheduled open-house, we’d see it. If there was no open house in the immediate future, we’d consult some more and if it still looked somewhat promising, ask our agent to show us the house. Granted, this process took a bit to refine, and our poor agent showed me several houses that were just terrible, but we got much better at minimizing wasted time by looking more closely at all the photos in a listing, and figuring out floorplans from photos and elevations and surroundings via Apple Maps.
In February and March of 2015, we found a couple of houses that were close but not quite there. One ticked all the boxes but the only network connectivity available was via satellite, and one was too expensive since we’d have to demolish the existing garage. Then in late March, Redfin’s suggestions popped up a new property in a locale I’d previously ruled out, yet when I looked at the images and saw the “garage,” I knew we may have found a serious contender. Thirty days later, we were nervously working with our agent to negotiate its purchase.
Which brings us to now. We are set to close on the “new” place tomorrow–a nice 50-year-old property in need of some TLC, but is structurally sound and (I hope) looking forward to us moving in and taking care of it.
