Pilot Episode

There must be people out there who are in the same boat as me. Just within the last two years I’ve graduated from college, started what I hope is going to be a long and prosperous career, and married my fiance of three years. From the chaos of my twenties, a stable, fulfilling life has emerged, and I find myself moving the scope of my vision from the immediate concerns of everyday life to the future my wife and I have already begun to build. Our sights are now set on personal growth, building lasting relationships, fostering a lifestyle consistent with our philosophies, and – most importantly – on raising a family. While we seem to be moving towards these goals in leaps and bounds, one shackle of our former life remains: apartment living.

While I am grateful for what our apartment has been, it no longer suits our growing needs. I can wax philosophical about the cramps on liberty that close-proximity housing produces. I can go on and on about the unsavory quality of our neighborhood and its tenants. I even have quite a bit to say about the impotence of not having actual ownership. To clarify all of that, though, I’ll just say that I’m driven by a dream of what I want life to be, and our two-bedroom townhouse, located just a half block away from one of the busiest streets in town, has exhausted its purpose.

Needless to say, (but still, I persist in saying it) I want a house. It feels like a selfish want, maybe even an extravagant want, and a fear constantly ticks at the back of my mind that it’s a want that is socially-conditioned and unnecessary. I’ve been hashing out these feelings of doubt for a while now, and for all of the arguments against private home ownership, I’ve compiled a single, well-articulated retort. To hear my retort, please stick your tongue out between your lips and blow as hard as you can. This concludes the interactive portion of this article.

When I first started thinking about home ownership, I thought it was just another far-off dream. As the dream gained momentum, I approached my dad with what I was thinking, and he encouraged me to research ways in which I could make home ownership possible. In the six months following, I absorbed every last detail that I could glean from the internet about buying and owning a home. I’ve made daily visits to listing sites, I’ve memorized more detail than I care to admit about financing options, and I’ve had my credit score checked at least twice. I’ve poured over crime maps, flood maps, seismic activity maps, school zones, voting districts, Google maps, population demographics, and nearby items of interest for hours trying to get a feel for neighborhoods and lot sizes. I’ve learned every last thing that This Old House can teach me about home repair and renovation.

My fear of being unprepared for a situation and making a fool of myself, or of being taken advantage of, deters me more than I’d really like to admit. The majority of the work I’ve done has been from the privacy of an internet browser (however private that is), and has not involved the input of others. To say it plainly, I’m afraid of walking into a bank and not being able to get a loan. I’m afraid of real estate agents and lending brokers using my intense dreams and desires to my disadvantage. I’m afraid of finding a house that I really want, only to be told that the renovations are too complicated or too costly for me to complete. In some ways, I guess I could sum it up by saying that I’ve been afraid to have my bubble burst.  In other ways, it’d be more accurate to say that because of the scale of the purchase, I’m being very cautious. Either way, I’d say that I’ve reached the limit of where the internet can take me in this, and I’m about to step off into the unknown abyss of real life.

I’ve made one small step already. I called a finance officer at a local bank and asked her to compute my loan-worthiness based on my current financial situation. She told me that I would need to build credit in order to secure the best interest rates, so my wife and I have opened a credit card account. We’ve also managed to start a savings plan to help with the down payment and other costs. While we have a bit more work to do, we’re much closer to the financial preparedness we’ll need in order to buy a home.

I’m starting this blog, then, to chronicle everything that remains to be done in the process. I’m not sure if that means just the buying process, or if it means renovation and repair, or if it just means everything having to do with home ownership from this point on in my life. I’ve seen the effects that a blog can have on a person from watching the evolution of my wife’s blog over the last two years. Because she pulls inspiration for her blog from our daily life, she ends up preserving in her posts many of our precious moments that would otherwise be lost. She has benefited in many other ways, which I am motivated by as well, but my real concern at this point is to preserve what has already been one of the most fascinating, yet arduous, projects I’ve ever set out to undertake. I am currently at the happiest, most stable point of my life, and it seems like a waste not to try and reflect on little bits of it here and there. If my wife’s experience with her blog is any indication, I’ll probably learn a tremendous amount through this process as well.

I think I’ve said more than a mouthful today, but I feel like I have a hundred more thoughts about home ownership tumbling around in my head. However, I'll reserve those thoughts for future posts.