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OK, for any of you who have been wondering: Did these people just stop looking or just stop writing? Or, more succinctly, WTF? So allow me to make an announcement: We have, at long last, found a house.
Actually, if I may disagree with myself, I don’t think it has been all that long. We only started looking in earnest a few months ago, and I don’t think five months is too long to find and buy a house. I have been known to take that long to investigate and purchase a radio for our kitchen. And real estate is slightly more complicated than a radio, even the fancy one I ended up buying.
We will dribble out details over the next few days, and then this blog will be the victim of a mercy killing. The main detail, of course, is—which house? This one. As you can see, it is a FSBO, pronounced “fizzbo,” as in For Sale By Owner. And we were BWAREA, pronounced “bwarah!” as in Buyers Without A Real Estate Agent. Because buying your first house isn’t difficult enough.
In truth, buying a house without a realtor was not so much difficult as time-consuming. There’s just a lot of stuff you have to learn about and do. But the chief value of real-estate agents, insofar as they have any, comes in negotiations: The term “arm’s length negotiations” is no longer an abstract idea to us. I would have happily paid a few thousand bucks—maybe not 3 percent of the sales price, but a nice piece of change—for the ability to pick up the phone, dial my agent and say, in my best Tony Soprano voice, “Get this done.”
It didn’t happen that way. More later. In the meantime, how about that kitchen? (I'll let Nora explain her newly nuanced position on the countertops.) And the back porch! And it has a new furnace! I’m not just saying this because we’re buying it: It’s a great house.
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Nora: Hey Michael, as I was putting together our itinerary for this weekend’s open house visitations, I noticed this house, which practically screams, “motivated seller”! Just think, for a few thousand dollars more (just as I wrote that I thought, This
is what buying real estate does to you: You start to toss off phrases
like “a few thousand dollars more” as if you’re talking about pocket
change) we could have eight more bedrooms than we’d have in the beloved green house.
What would we do with 12 bedrooms and 4.5 baths? I smell a family
reunion … or a bed-and-breakfast. Either way, I smell a lot of pancakes!
Yes,
it’s on a main street. Yes, it’s way too big for us. But it’s hard to
resist the temptation to look at a house that’s going for $261,000 less
than what the current owners paid just two years ago.
Michael:
But the point isn’t how much the seller paid for it—it’s what we can
afford! And we can’t afford $700,000 for a house, even if it comes with
12 bedrooms and all the pancakes you can eat. Though I have to say, if
it ever comes down to a decision between two similar houses, each with
pluses and minuses but one that features free pancakes, I would choose
the one with free pancakes. I would also accept free waffles.
Nora:
True enough, but if they're willing to knock off $100,000 from their
original asking price, if we wait long enough, maybe they'll knock off
another $100,000. There I go again, tossing off big numbers
nonchalantly!
Michael: You’re right that there are some pretty drastic reductions out there. In
most cases, alas, the biggest discounts are for houses that
we can’t afford or
aren’t really even houses.
But I am not sure we have yet hit bottom. Not that I care too much—like
I said, we can afford what we can afford, and trying to time the
real-estate market strikes me as about as foolish as trying to time the
stock market. But banks and lenders do care, because all this price
uncertainty can make it
hard to appraise a house. Which is important, as we are learning.
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I love your idea about the swap, Michael, but I’m not sure that the new owner of the yellow house would be so keen on moving to Tampa. Yes, that’s right: I have, thanks to one of our readers, met the person who bought our dream house, and I’m happy to say we might even become friends.
Meeting her doesn’t quite equal meeting—and working with—the other Nora Krug, but it does evoke that same, eerie someone-else-is-living-my-life feeling. And though I promise not to stalk, I’m hoping she might let our family have a turn on her porch swing someday.
But, I know, I must move on. Yes, I’ve said that before, but, really, this time I will. Here’s another yellow house, and at this price and with this large front lawn, we could probably add a porch (and swing). Wanna take a look?
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First things first: I saw the house on Maple Avenue. Went over at 8:30 last night and felt awkward, as the current owners were there with their newborn and had to make themselves scarce while I examined crown moldings and turned the kitchen faucet on and off. (I always do that at an open house. Don't ask me why. If Nora were there, I would have nodded to her and said, "Faucet works.")
The owners were very, very nice, as is their house, as is their neighborhood. There were fresh cookies. It was quiet. There were no nuclear weapons. Still, on the way home, talking to Nora as I drove through Rock Creek Park, I knew that we were not going to live in this place. For one, as Nora said yesterday, it would have been a stretch to be able to afford it. For another, and more to the point, we are just not ready to make an offer on a house overnight. Practically speaking.
Partly that has to do with the insanely complicated transaction that is buying a house. And partly that has to do with my own trepidation and dread about the mortgage industry. (I know this is a standard anxiety for first-time homebuyers. Still. That's what we are. And after browsing through stuff like this, can you blame us?) So when Denise asks me, as she does regularly, "Have you talked to a mortgage broker yet?" I have a twofold response: 1. "Not yet. But soon! I promise! I've left messages!" 2. "I need to talk to my lobbyists on the Hill."
I am not being entirely facetious about No. 2. Buying a house is the largest purchase you will ever make, which everyone seems to like to tell you. And the larger your purchase—of anything, really, but especially real estate—the more the government is involved. Over the last few weeks, especially, as this proposal and this proposal show, the federal government has been working overtime on our behalf. The central question now before Congress is simple: What do we need to do to get you in this house today?
Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia has proposed a tax credit of up to $15,000 for homebuyers. Sen. Mitch McConnell wants the government to underwrite mortgages at 4 percent. I don't know what chance these proposals have. But I'm not averse to waiting a little while as members of Congress compete with one another to help out first-time homebuyers like us.
What do you think, Nora? I notice that the house on Maple Avenue, as Denise predicted, is under contract. I'm sorry. But maybe we can get a member of Congress to sponsor a bill giving a special tax credit to any family selling a yellow house with a porch.
P.S. I just talked to a mortgage broker!
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I'm a sucker for a yellow house with a porch. Michael and I got married in one, and every time I see one, I think, If only. So you can imagine my delight when I saw that this lovely house in Takoma Park, Md., had come on the market. Not only did the house feature my favored color scheme and architectural style, the listing included images of the house decked out for the Fourth of July, which just happens to be our anniversary.
Located in a designated historic district of Takoma Park, itself designated as a nuclear-free zone (I feel safer already!—Michael), this house is just a couple of blocks from the Metro, a huge plus for us. But it's also located on a fairly busy street, where the nice old houses are very close together. It's suburban, yes, but has that urban feel.
Driving up to the house Monday evening, I was only slightly deflated to see that another potential buyer was already there. (Wait, I thought the bubble had burst!) The listing had just gone up Thursday, and the sellers were holding off on an open house until this coming weekend, so these other lookers were being as aggressive as I was—or rather more so, since they'd made their appointment 15 minutes before mine. It made for some awkward greetings at the door. But no matter, we trudged on, sampling the lovely chocolates the sellers had left on the small kitchen table.
Looking past the other gawkers, I was pleasantly surprised by the layout. It had been updated with an open floor plan but respected the architectural details—built-in bookshelves and the like—that looked original to the 1920s house. And though the kitchen was also updated, there were, thankfully, no granite countertops or stainless-steel appliances. As I ticked off our checklist—first-floor powder room, family room open to kitchen, deck, three generously sized bedrooms, a genuine master bedroom with its very own bathroom and walk-in closet—I became both overjoyed and nervous. This was too good to be true. And then there was a photograph, of what I assume was the seller, running a race; a book about training for a marathon; and a wall display of Condé Nast magazines. Michael runs marathons; I used to work at a Condé Nast magazine. This had gone too far. (If they'd also had a toy bus for Joe, I would be very suspicious.—Michael)
They'd had me at the front porch.
Of course, as we've learned, there's no such thing as a perfect house. The basement is only partially finished, so if we wanted a playroom or guest room, we'd have our work cut out for us. There's also no garage, so if we did renovate the basement, we'd lose significant storage space. Also, the yard, though flat and big enough for a swing set and a little garden, was uninspiring. Perhaps the biggest drawback, for me anyway, is that there's no central air conditioning. Denise thought it could cost us some $15,000 to install it. That's a pretty penny on a house that, at $649,900, is already stretching our budget to the limit.
Negatives aside, this place felt like my yellow house with the porch. I sent Denise a message saying Michael would like to take a look before the open house this weekend. Turns out we may already be too late: Apparently, at least one other buyer is preparing an offer as I write this. Michael's on his way over this evening. Fingers crossed.
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By Nora Krug and Michael Newman
For our entire adult lives, whether in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington, we have been among the most discriminated-against minority in America: We are renters. Now, finally, we are ready to join the two-thirds of Americans who own a home. So while most of you may have been dreading the day the bubble burst, we have been anticipating it. We are hoping there is at least one desperate seller—that's all we need—of a big beautiful home just waiting for buyers like us: a 1.5-income household with great credit, enough savings for at least a 20 percent down payment, and, best of all, no home of our own to sell.
In this blog we'll chronicle our quest for our first home in post-Bush, pre-stimulus, late-bubble Washington. Before we begin, a few salient facts about us. We're the Newmans (hence the blog's title, not to be confused with the Newmans behind these delicious cookies). Michael's the politics editor of Slate, Nora (whose last name is Krug) writes the paperbacks column for the Washington Post, and Joseph is a 17-month-old who's running out of room to run in our two-bedroom apartment in Northwest Washington. And despite our years of saving—some of it dating back to Nora's bat mitzvah!—we can't really afford to stay in our neighborhood, which we like a lot.
So we start with that compromise. And we're prepared for more, the most unfortunate of which may be leaving the city for the suburbs. (There is a chance we could hang on to urban life by buying in Capitol Hill, but more on that in later posts.) Houses in our neighborhood start at about $800,000; three-bedroom apartments in our building are about the same. Other desirable neighborhoods—convenient to parks and public transportation, feeding into a decent D.C. public school—are simply out of our reach. We're holding out a tiny bit of hope, if that's the right word, that things will get so bad that a neighborhood like this will become affordable. But our real estate agent, Denise Verburg, has done her best to crush this hope. But hey, Denise—the economy could get worse! Then again, if it does, we might be out of our jobs.
Truth be told, our house search predates this blog. In fact, a few weeks ago, we were very close to making an offer on this very house, in Silver Spring, Md. It's a lovely house that fits many of our criteria: at least three bedrooms (this one has four); two bathrooms (including one on the main floor); a decent-sized but not-too-decked-out kitchen (granite is so over) with space for a table; a good-sized backyard (this one even has a sandbox); a basement playroom (this one was a bit dreary); good closet space (a great walk-in on the second floor); central AC (D.C. is horribly humid in the summer); and, if possible, a fireplace. And we were told that there were two offers scheduled to be made on the house the very next day. No fair, we thought. The bubble's supposed to be burst!
So wait: Why didn't we buy this house?
Several reasons, really, but the most important one is that it violated that most cherished and clichéd principle of real estate: location. The owners said that they walked to the subway every day, and we don't doubt them. But it is a 1.3-mile walk along a grim, busy thoroughfare. Neither of us is averse to walking a mile and a half to the subway. But isn't a nice walk one of the things you move to the suburbs for? There was also the issue of that dreary basement, the tiny living room, and more important, the fact that the neighborhood high school isn't one of the county's better schools.
Why move to the suburbs just to live in a smallish house with a long, unlovely walk to the train and be able to send Joe to an underwhelming school? But you'll move before Joseph goes to high school, Denise, our gung-ho agent, assured us. But hey, Denise—the economy could get worse! In fact it almost certainly will. We may have to stay in this house till Joe goes to college.
In the end, we decided not to make an offer, despite Denise's advice to make one with an "escalation clause." (To her credit, she allowed that it was a "counterintuitive strategy in this market." That's one way of putting it.) Neither of the two other allegedly interested parties actually made an offer. Nearly a month later, the house is now under contract. And we're feeling maybe a slight amount of nonbuyer's remorse. Until Friday, when this house came on the market. Joe and Nora are off to see it now.