TheRedArchive

~ archived since 2018 ~

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Hi ladies, it's been a while. I chose to take a step back from things for a while a few months ago to focus on real life and what goes along with it. There's been a lot to focus on; we're getting down to the very, very near timeframe of when we're going to elope (sometime before the end of May, but with two weeks notice prior - a surprise is the plan, even for me!), my great-grandmother turned 100 at the end of February and there was a lot of family drama involving her finances with that (still dealing with that mess), my aunt apparently received an anonymous phone call from someone in the US that my cousin (who moved to the US and got married 15 years ago) is being abused by her husband so she's flying halfway around the world to get here in the next week to try and inject herself into whatever is going on there (I have no clue), B's sister had a baby on Valentine's Day (yay!), my little sister got engaged (double yay!), I've been working at my new job in a new career field and really enjoying it (woo hoo!) for the most part (working closely with women again is tricky) and ...we bought a new house!

So, that house thing. It's been a process. I can't recall if there are any realtors here, but it is currently a sellers' market. Houses in our price range for the size we want are being snapped up within 3 hours of being listed. I'm still astounded that anyone has the time to sit there and watch for them, let alone see them, make a decision, and get an offer submitted in that time frame. Mind-blowing!

Anyway - this whole process started prior to our vacation in mid-March (oh, that happened too - we went to Amsterdam and Paris - I've got A LOT to say on that, but that's not really a good subject for a RPW post so if you have questions, feel free to just ask or PM me) because a foreclosure that we had been eyeing for several months had just dropped in price. We went to see it about 4 days prior to leaving - we would have seen it sooner, but the first two agents we contacted stiffed us. The third agent (who has remained our agent, and is a peach) gave us a lot of valuable information and our plan was to submit an offer upon returning from vacation. Wouldn't you know it, someone swooped in with a cash offer on our first day of vacation - after the property had been on the market for almost one full year. This should have been a sign of what was to come, but we did not realize just how deep the Dixie Family Bad Luck Streak (real thing, I swear to you) was running at this point.

Fast forward to last week - we have now, at this point, submitted four offers on four different homes that we really wanted. Four offers, well contemplated, and submitted as quickly as humanly possible - we were unable to buy any of these four homes due to other buyers submitting their similar offer slightly before, being able to close faster (curse you VA loans!), or just other extremely unfortunate events. We even saw one house that B really loved, but I ultimately told him I had a strongly bad feeling about - turns out, the house had a really bad history including suicide, and he decided to drop it from consideration shortly before an investor swooped in to buy it. Following the loss of the 4th house, our agent stated "I don't know what it is with you guys, but any time you get interested in a place, someone else wants it - no matter how long it's been out there." This is fairly typical of things that happen in the Dixie family, so I'm used to it, but she did ask if I was willing to view a few dusty listings she had in hopes of drumming up buyers. :)

So - now, at this point, we're at the lessons learned; the things I have learned from this process.

Lesson #1: I was not emotionally prepared for this at all - part of the home buying process for me was to evaluate the home for raising our family, and envisioning myself in it. Losing a place I had put that kind of thought into, it smarted. But not only that - the art of compromise became so much more important. B is admittedly extremely picky in this process. He actually shot down a beautiful home because he did not like the drop-off at the edge of the driveway - it's the small things that bother him, whereas I can gloss over those things if everything else is worth it. In addition to this, I involved emotion far too much with the entire process. See lessons 2 and 3.

Lesson #2: He expected to have the upper hand at all aspects of the process. It makes sense that he would, because that's how he plays everything else in life. He's always five steps ahead. However, in this market, we're not at an advantage unless we wanted to buy well above our desired price point. There is no calling of bluffs, because there is always someone waiting in the wings to snap up what you're not willing to fight for. We lost two homes due to this. I became extremely discouraged by this, because it appeared to me at first (emotional) glance that he did not care about the ultimate goal - which is to find a bigger home that meets his requirements for raising a family. I, unfortunately, lashed out. We fought more during this process than I think we have ever fought in the entirety of our relationship altogether. However, it was entirely my fault because I kept disrespecting the decisions he made and saying things I shouldn't have. Ultimately I remembered to STFU, but remembering sooner would have been MUCH more preferable.

Lesson #3: If you put someone in charge, you're disrespecting them greatly by trying to take it back. B knows he is in charge and that his say is final. My thoughts and opinions are always welcome and weighed, but his say goes. I, at several times in this process, attempted to usurp that final say through emotional outbursts. I'm embarrassed by it actually, but extremely grateful that his level head prevailed. There was an argument where I tried to push. Had I persisted and pushed and he caved, there actually is the potential that we would have had to shell out another $15k out of our own pockets and be sitting on a mortgage that I wouldn't be totally comfortable with. Again, knowing when to STFU could have avoided these issues.

Ultimately, this process revealed a side of me that I did not know. I don't like that side, but I need to understand it in order to fix it. So, I'm working on that. But I also revisited a lot of fundamentals that I absolutely discarded during this course due to being excessively emotionally attached to the process.


[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Ufff I totally feel your pain on the stress of buying a house. We recently bought our first place together, also in a crazy-hot market. The average house price where I live is over a million bucks, so if you're going in with less than that to spend things disappear sooo fast. The whole thing is really stressful and in the end it was pure luck that we managed to snag the one we did. Hang in there! Are auctions common where you live? We went to a few just out of interest, and occasionally if big bidders didn't show up and the seller was desperate to get rid of it, and all the stars aligned just right, you could snap up a "bargain".

I was just like you in that I would walk into a place and immediately start imagining what we would look like in that house 5 years down the track. I'd get emotionally attached really quickly, and then FH would find something unacceptable about it and it would break my heart. Looking back now though, they were all actual deal breakers and I'm so glad he had a cool head throughout it all. I had to keep reminding myself that he's been in the property game a long time while I was just learning, and that made it easier to just relax into it and trust that he'll get us into the place that is right for us.

It's so easy to take our partner's lead on the little things in life, the real test of trust comes with the big, life-altering decisions and it sounds like you came out of it with some great new lessons to think about :)

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Ugh, I'm sorry for it being ages before I replied to you - I'm really trying to balance things, and it leaves Reddit and whatnot to the bottom of the pile.

You're in Oz, right? Auctions are fairly common here with foreclosure properties, however there's a certain stage for each one and they're kind of hit or miss. Thankfully, houses in our area are not even close to being in that price range! We spent under $150k for our place; it is worth over that currently, but once we're done with a few move-in improvements we'll have about $60k in equity, which is huge in this area. Some of the auctions are crazy though, I am sure if we had been frequenting those we could've snapped up a really good deal, but I feel like I need to see more of a house first and investors get really aggressive with those.

Some of our closest friends are in the same spot as us right now, and they're waiting to find out if they won a place sometime this Friday - it's a foreclosure, like ours. She is really in the same spot as me, she got emotionally involved because she went through the same process of imagining the future there, while he is being more reserved and controlling the checkbook. It's almost amusing hearing about it, as the husband has been texting B and telling him about their struggles which almost exactly mirror ours - but ultimately they're in a similar position to us (I mean, minus their now 4mo old baby lol) and just trying for the same goals as us.

Things have calmed down immensely thankfully, the process no longer seems so stressful now that we've gotten this first part out of the way. We close on 5/26 and move in that weekend, we list our current house the week after that. Phase two is coming!

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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