I think I want to buy a home. I don’t know if I can buy a home, so I’m finding out everything I can about it. I will be posting my progress here from time to time. Part one is here. Part two is here. Part three is here. Part four is here. 

When we last left our heroine it was nearly two years ago and her dream of owning a home was sputtering. Her worst fears were that nothing was going to happen until (gasp!) 2015.

And when I last wrote, I was casually looking because some money was coming my way, but that money was not even close to money I needed. So, sputter sputter, and no big deal, since I was installed in the cutest apartment ever and I needed some very calm time after some really hard time. And 2014 turned out to have lots of stuff stuffed into it, too.

But then, yeah, an amount of money came my way, quite recently. By then I had a financial advisor, who was helping me along with some funds I had inherited, and she gently but persistently urged me to think about buying a home as soon as the financial stars aligned.

And, really, once the money is there, the rocket takes off pretty quickly. I started anew with a new loan officer and realtor, and found out what I could afford in this screwy County, which wasn’t much.

I was half hoping for this story to include a parade of really awful places, but there were just two and they did not disappoint.

• Fixer upper by the beach — walking through the door of this two-level condo, the cigarette and animal poop one-two punch almost leveled me out. Then we made the mistake of opening the doors of the washer, dryer and fridge. Believe it or not, this one was a close contender. Sinking several thousand into it would have made it nice and would have made it verrry flippable.
• The De-HELL-opment — Realtor couldn’t help showing me a three-bedroom in the most notorious condo development in Ventura. Something ill and apocalyptic about the place. Walking through, I saw what was clearly a hoarder’s home, with stuff piled on the balcony; the condo we toured (still occupied) smelled strongly of the weed and was a wreck. Outside, it was like Central Casting had put out the call for “weirdo extras.” BUT HEY IT WAS IN MY PRICE RANGE!

Shifting in to motivated homebuying mode was shockingly easy. Suddenly, spending the most I’ll ever spend on anything ever several times over just became a reality. Sure am glad I got a little experience from the house sale before; if I had to be sat down and educated from square one I would have felt totally overwhelmed. As it was, things went shockingly, breathtakingly fast.

I will mention here this is an extra-crispy challenge to do by oneself; not only because of $$ but also because of having to, well, make all the decisions. Only my realtor and I saw the places I’d been considering, and I have to make a narrative out of a 20 minute visit, I have to project my future on a blip of a moment and a whole lot of gut feeling.

I think I got lucky. There were three places I saw worth actual consideration, in the three different areas in which I want to live. All with pros/cons (which demanded many lists, much obsessive looking at the real estate photos, and many emails and calls to trusted friends and family.)

So in a three-day blitz, I saw, chose, made an offer, and got the offer accepted, on a place. Yup. Escrow starts Monday.