Real estate for the ambitious and broke
Like many others, we are also half-heartedly house-hunting. One may recall that, right now, we are at least in a house as opposed to an apartment, but are still paying rent, and to the big University machine no less. We enjoy our rental house, but after two years (three if we have a really good reason and we beg), they will kick us to the curb. We are not in the least interested in throwing Dada's hard-earned cash-flow to the rental gods ever ever again after this place. We must find something to buy.
In this we have several major problems:
1) Do you know how much a starting professor makes? It is okay. We will not starve; we will continue to walk to Starbucks, and possibly buy things there, more than once a week. But it is not too much. Now that my salary from leaky grad-student pay has run dry we are uncomfortably realizing that we must (GASP!) make a budget and (DOUBLE GASP!) follow it.
2) Have you seen what the housing market is like? In our "looking at houses", which consists of Dada seeing houses nearby listed online and us driving by them while Isaac naps in the car, we see that three-bedroom crap-shacks held together by crap-straps that are two blocks from the railroad tracks go for between $250-$300K in our town. It is not pretty, and we can't afford this right now.
3) Some of you may not know this, but in a former life Dada both built and contracted houses for a living. As far as we know, he is still a licensed professional drywaller in Indiana. While this makes him very handy to have around, unfortunately this also means he knows way too much for his own good about how crappily one can build said expensive crap-shacks, and he wants no part of that whatsoever. Obviously any shacks that are made of materials that didn't come from the sewer are even further out of our price range.
4) Dada has strong opinions about where he wants to live, and especially who he wants to live next to. You there, with the tires in your yard? Dada doesn't want to live next to you. You there, crazy old lady with the unbelievable array of highly-decorated bird mansions in your front yard? Yeah, he doesn't want to live next to you either. You there, with the gigantic lawn ornament professing your love for the Eagles? You there, walking out of Wal-Mart with the 8' inflatable snow globe to decorate your front lawn? You guessed it...you have the cooties also, according to Dada. He also doesn't want to live in a "neighborhood", where houses are built such that one can quite easily stare in one's neighbors' side windows from one's own side windows. Our Dada is an annoyingly discriminating individual, but he is usually right on, and in this case also has potential resale value in mind.
After another depressing session of "looking at houses" yesterday, Dada and I came to a conclusion today with which we have both found inner peace. We will build a nice and small house to Dada's exacting specifications. In the spring, we will buy a plot of land, probably out in the country, within a half-hour's drive from the school. In the summer (when Dada's salary will temporarily double), Dada and others will lay the foundation and frame us up a house. Sometime in the following year, Dada will wear his contractor's hat once more and will find reliable people to do the work for him finishing up our house. This will work especially spectacularly for us because there are parcels of land out there that are easily affordable and easy for us to put a downpayment on, and then we can finish up the house as we can afford to do so.
What put the extra zen in our nirvana was this house plan I found online today that we know is the one for us. Like I said, it is small; this is the key to our being able to afford to build. But small is all we need. Do I want to clean some gawd-awful mansion anyway? Heck, no.
So that's our new life-plan, and boy what a load off it is. Let's hope the stars continue to align for our little family and we can make our dream of non-crap a reality.
In this we have several major problems:
1) Do you know how much a starting professor makes? It is okay. We will not starve; we will continue to walk to Starbucks, and possibly buy things there, more than once a week. But it is not too much. Now that my salary from leaky grad-student pay has run dry we are uncomfortably realizing that we must (GASP!) make a budget and (DOUBLE GASP!) follow it.
2) Have you seen what the housing market is like? In our "looking at houses", which consists of Dada seeing houses nearby listed online and us driving by them while Isaac naps in the car, we see that three-bedroom crap-shacks held together by crap-straps that are two blocks from the railroad tracks go for between $250-$300K in our town. It is not pretty, and we can't afford this right now.
3) Some of you may not know this, but in a former life Dada both built and contracted houses for a living. As far as we know, he is still a licensed professional drywaller in Indiana. While this makes him very handy to have around, unfortunately this also means he knows way too much for his own good about how crappily one can build said expensive crap-shacks, and he wants no part of that whatsoever. Obviously any shacks that are made of materials that didn't come from the sewer are even further out of our price range.
4) Dada has strong opinions about where he wants to live, and especially who he wants to live next to. You there, with the tires in your yard? Dada doesn't want to live next to you. You there, crazy old lady with the unbelievable array of highly-decorated bird mansions in your front yard? Yeah, he doesn't want to live next to you either. You there, with the gigantic lawn ornament professing your love for the Eagles? You there, walking out of Wal-Mart with the 8' inflatable snow globe to decorate your front lawn? You guessed it...you have the cooties also, according to Dada. He also doesn't want to live in a "neighborhood", where houses are built such that one can quite easily stare in one's neighbors' side windows from one's own side windows. Our Dada is an annoyingly discriminating individual, but he is usually right on, and in this case also has potential resale value in mind.
After another depressing session of "looking at houses" yesterday, Dada and I came to a conclusion today with which we have both found inner peace. We will build a nice and small house to Dada's exacting specifications. In the spring, we will buy a plot of land, probably out in the country, within a half-hour's drive from the school. In the summer (when Dada's salary will temporarily double), Dada and others will lay the foundation and frame us up a house. Sometime in the following year, Dada will wear his contractor's hat once more and will find reliable people to do the work for him finishing up our house. This will work especially spectacularly for us because there are parcels of land out there that are easily affordable and easy for us to put a downpayment on, and then we can finish up the house as we can afford to do so.
What put the extra zen in our nirvana was this house plan I found online today that we know is the one for us. Like I said, it is small; this is the key to our being able to afford to build. But small is all we need. Do I want to clean some gawd-awful mansion anyway? Heck, no.
So that's our new life-plan, and boy what a load off it is. Let's hope the stars continue to align for our little family and we can make our dream of non-crap a reality.
posted by Claire at 8:01 PM
3 Comments:
That looks like a great house!! I like the open floor plan and the island in the kitchen is great. Big houses are overrated!!! Easy for me to say since we will be looking for a "cute" house on a pathologist resident salary very soon.
Cute! I love little houses!
I absolutely concur, Jane -- I think Mike has that in mind for the garage and perhaps one of those backyard shed-type things. Alternatively, we may be building with future expansion in mind...
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