I think I want to buy a house. I don’t know if I can buy a house, so I’m finding out everything I can about it. I will be post my progress here from time to time.

My time with my Elderly Relative is drawing to a close. If all goes to agreed plan, by this summer he will be elsewhere and my family and I will prepare the house for sale. It’s very hard to write this, and I will talk about it more in depth at another time, in regards to transitioning John and saying goodbye. But for now, I’m talking about my own next steps.

Being a lowly non-profit worker and being from the Bay Area, the notion of being a property owner has always been laughable. A friend and I did some research in the early part of the millenium when I still lived up there and, unless we wanted to live in pure shit or WAY out there, there was no way to buy anything, anywhere, ever, with our salaries. In SF, as it is in New York, it’s all about who you know, what you do, and/or to have access to a lot of resources that normal Joes like me do not have.

Rents here in my area (Ventura County) have gotten high, and therefore one of the perks of being here (low cost of living) is gonzo. I really hate the idea of paying rent again. Dropping four digits monthly to some stupid property manager in some stupid town that doesn’t have rent control ($300 rent hike within one year! It happened!) gives me the heebie jeebies. Let alone landlords who won’t let their tenants have a party (yuk), who require that you keep up their vertical blinds (gag), having to schlep refrigerators* … ugh. I’m mad as hell and can’t take it anymore.

I’ve whined for many years that I want to own a house. I had quietly hoped maybe a windfall would happen at some point, so that I could afford a down payment. No dice. So I’ve stewed at the same time I grudgingly accepted that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Then I got an excellent pep talk by my friend Molly that went along the lines of  “quit your bitching, girlfriend, maybe you can afford a house, have you even tried to find out? Now buy me drinks.” With that, and with the knowledge that a certain amount of money is finally indeed coming my way when this house — which is owned by my siblings, cousins and me — is sold, I am testing the waters.

I arranged to meet with a friend who is a realtor. I bought her coffee and presented a list of my wants, needs, timelines and financial generalities — both about the house we want to sell and what I want in a future home. She in turn gave me an hour of extremely useful information about the current state of the housing market, how one goes about the process (of buying and selling) and a big long glossary of real estate terms (with which I’ll become irritatingly familiar.)  I’m super grateful for her help and she’s not stupid — her kindness and efficiency made her our (and my) realtor.

The obvious needed next step is to talk to a financial person — my friend recommends one in particular. This is where I’m really going to find out if my finances make it possible, what kind of loan I can expect, available first-time buyer programs, what I need to do about my remaining bad debt — all the scary money stuff that makes me clammy.

But right now, I’m concentrating on the house to sell. I’m  looking at the “comps” (comparable houses in the area and how much they’re selling/sold for), sneaking around open houses, talking to my family.

I do see how stressful the process can be. Most people have to wait to sell a house before they can buy another, and these are two separate and monumentally difficult processes. The housing market is temporarily hot right now (good for the home seller Becky, bad for the home buyer Becky); there are lots of things to be determined and sorted out and family consulted before anything can move forward; I need to work on finding a living situation for the Relative; and there’s the matter of the packing and the cleanout and the sprucing. All this and a full time job. And not to mention: there’s still carpeting in the bathrooms! Except one. 

As for my own picket-fence dream. I may have plenty of impulse control issues, but I am a rock-solid realist about this. If it’s too much to reach for, it’s not going to happen. I have no intention of living beyond my means again. I’ll take my tiny windfall and buy shoes. Haha, you-go-girl humor!

That’s it for now! Yikes!

*I don’t have any idea why one must supply one’s own refrigerator in so many rentals here. It’s bizarrely common.