In August this year, Usha, Aakash and I placed a checkmark on the immigrant’s list and moved into our own home in
Chicagoland. This check mark despite other
punctuation marks littering a far from perfect script – “?” about long
term plans, “;” near-miss change of plans, “()” with the what-ifs and
“,” adding to the list of other people in the same boat and doing
likewise.
Not a romantic enough description of the home move so far? A lot of wonderful and precious moments already accumulated with friends and extended family in the new home! And please read on.
As we start to put our feet up in the new home, we’ve begun to reminisce and laugh about the year of on-and-off home search.
This search was not all serious beat-the-lease-date and stick-to-your-budget legendary stuff. We made time for flights of fancy too. We thrilled over dream kitchens with quartz countertops, basement sizes that could host a game of cricket, sun rooms as mecca for books and reading, backyards that opened into a golf course. Not to mention HGTV shows where folks in Indiana and Iowa were getting all that and more for far less (dammit!). We knew only too well what our budget compounded by a much sought after school district would allow. Flights of fancy, while avoiding leap of faith. The journey is as important as the destination you see.
Purchase of a home is not a rosy affair. It would seem “buyer” and “seller” are in an adversarial relationship. Even a simple greeting and query has to go through the respective agent. The seller always has this allure: “No, no, she’s not a flipper. She’s a sweet old 70 year old grandma who rehabbed this home to gift it to her son, who decided to take a job in DC instead.”
That our 9 year old, Aakash, was part of the process throughout made it a lot of fun. Not that the dude, fed on a diet of HGTV shows, would have it any other way. Come back from every home viewing and making a list of top 3 what we liked/ what we did not like was spearheaded by him and Usha. “Was this open concept enough? How did you like the curb appeal? Do we have enough space for soccer?”
We saw both the good side and the “shark” side of a listing agent. Since there were no great comps for one of the homes we were considering, we had to go back-and-forth several times on the offer. You could see the listing agent was getting frustrated - she decided to show up unannounced to an ‘extra’ viewing we had arranged to get a friend’s opinion: “I hear you saying ‘it’s looking good’ but that’s because offer, closing date, etc – we have agreed to everything you asked for. My husband is waiting outside for me and we need to leave in 2 mins. Need you to sign this offer right now.” On another occasion when we were trying to negotiate closing costs, our realtor was slapped with an email advertising that the home was being taken off the market and would now be put on rent. Sneaky tactics? You decide!
Along the way, there was embittered advice online and from others: “He didn’t tell you explicitly to negotiate closing costs? Seriously? You should just tell him you will post a Yelp review online about him – and ask him to cough up your portion of the closing from his commission. Anyway, he did not have to do much legwork (show too many homes) since you guys found yours pretty quick. Have the b$% earn his commission.” My, my, my.
When it comes to choosing home Inspectors, the more morose looking, the better. Usha and I finalized from our short-list by looking at the inspector’s mugshot:) on his website, I kid you not. He had the most “he even helped us walk away from the deal” kind of feedback on yelp, not to mention a few terrorized comments from sellers too. Little did we know then that once you select a home and initial offer is accepted, it becomes a self-fulfilling process: you love the home and need to make it happen.
Talking about the wall between buyer-seller, being a first-time buyer here in the US lets you get away with some naïve (or I like to call it ballsy:) stuff. Case in point: in the nerve wracking period after home inspection, when both sides are wondering who will blink first, I pick up the phone and call up the seller’s agent (you heard it right, the seller’s:). We were trying to get access for inspecting the attic and for the weirdest reason that was becoming a showstopper. I did get an earful from her about violating protocol (not working through my own realtor) and while this home finally did not work out, certainly enjoyed rocking the boat in hindsight.
Our realtor had provided Attorney references to choose from when it comes to closing. Its mostly a list of emails, an Attorney being a mythical being till it gets to the closing table. One of the Attorney emails was (I kid you not) Lawgoddess*@gmail.com. Unfortunately, her phone was not in service anymore because I remember thinking, “Wow! This is really the kind of Attorney that would spice up the world of Homebuyer Attorneys.” Any of you trying to email her, please do so at your own risk:) (but do share if you hear anything back, okay:)?
I started writing this blog when we started the process. I suffer from FOMO – Fear of Missing out, anxious that no priceless moment or detail slip through the memory cracks. Even as I was doing that, it was tempting to look ahead and write the perfect script: kind of like that movie where a newspaper group faced with dwindling sales orchestrates a political murder even as their lead reported is writing it up so as to have first mover advantage. So glad that we ended up not jinxing ourselves and it was a happy ending after all!
One thing I’m going to miss though is the crackling conversations with the 70-year landlord of the rental home we moved out of. Brash and humorous, as Italian as they come. Hard-hitting language without the polish or grammar, know what I mean?
“This tenant he used to smoke pot. I think both he and his wife used to smoke pot. His head would always be (showing a head bobbing expression) whenever I talked to him. In one of those states, he painted this door with the same ‘blister’ paint as this wall.”
Pushing back on our request to remedy the mushrooms that were growing wild in the backyard and are considered dangerous: “You just pick them up like this and put them in your mouth; don’t even have to cook them – very tasty.”
Talking about a previous tenant: “She was quite the woman! Used to run this dance school near the gas station nearby and most nights she would have her girls (students) over. They would be up dancing and partying and God knows what else because one night, the waterbed in the bedroom broke and there was water all over the house. The floors have never been the same since.”
And now what? Any major purchase – nay, even any major decision – will always be prefaced with: “Don’t forget, we have a home loan.” Another monthly mortgage will have Usha saying: “Not to get too excited, we just own a total of 2 kitchen tiles in all of the home so far:)”. And you know we’re amateurs when we talk manual drill and drill bits and get our homeowner high from putting up some picture frames on the wall and fixing a leaking pipe with some magic tape!
With parents visiting from India and family in the US visiting to celebrate Aakash' 10th, the last month has been an extended party with friends and family. Action-packed and enjoyable and could not have asked for a better way of housewarming.
In conclusion (to borrow from this post: A life in moves) - however painful (or joyful as this post would led you to believe:) moving may be, not moving is considered cowardice. Choosing not to move is not such a moving story.
Human nature has a bias for the bright side, a penchant for the promised land. We feel the sense of dislocation only during the act of moving: as soon as we’re moved, we have the urge to unpack and to feel settled and organized. All, so we can start thinking again in peace about the next move.
Some weeks ago, we made what I believed was the biggest move of our life so far?
Not a romantic enough description of the home move so far? A lot of wonderful and precious moments already accumulated with friends and extended family in the new home! And please read on.
As we start to put our feet up in the new home, we’ve begun to reminisce and laugh about the year of on-and-off home search.
This search was not all serious beat-the-lease-date and stick-to-your-budget legendary stuff. We made time for flights of fancy too. We thrilled over dream kitchens with quartz countertops, basement sizes that could host a game of cricket, sun rooms as mecca for books and reading, backyards that opened into a golf course. Not to mention HGTV shows where folks in Indiana and Iowa were getting all that and more for far less (dammit!). We knew only too well what our budget compounded by a much sought after school district would allow. Flights of fancy, while avoiding leap of faith. The journey is as important as the destination you see.
Purchase of a home is not a rosy affair. It would seem “buyer” and “seller” are in an adversarial relationship. Even a simple greeting and query has to go through the respective agent. The seller always has this allure: “No, no, she’s not a flipper. She’s a sweet old 70 year old grandma who rehabbed this home to gift it to her son, who decided to take a job in DC instead.”
That our 9 year old, Aakash, was part of the process throughout made it a lot of fun. Not that the dude, fed on a diet of HGTV shows, would have it any other way. Come back from every home viewing and making a list of top 3 what we liked/ what we did not like was spearheaded by him and Usha. “Was this open concept enough? How did you like the curb appeal? Do we have enough space for soccer?”
We saw both the good side and the “shark” side of a listing agent. Since there were no great comps for one of the homes we were considering, we had to go back-and-forth several times on the offer. You could see the listing agent was getting frustrated - she decided to show up unannounced to an ‘extra’ viewing we had arranged to get a friend’s opinion: “I hear you saying ‘it’s looking good’ but that’s because offer, closing date, etc – we have agreed to everything you asked for. My husband is waiting outside for me and we need to leave in 2 mins. Need you to sign this offer right now.” On another occasion when we were trying to negotiate closing costs, our realtor was slapped with an email advertising that the home was being taken off the market and would now be put on rent. Sneaky tactics? You decide!
Along the way, there was embittered advice online and from others: “He didn’t tell you explicitly to negotiate closing costs? Seriously? You should just tell him you will post a Yelp review online about him – and ask him to cough up your portion of the closing from his commission. Anyway, he did not have to do much legwork (show too many homes) since you guys found yours pretty quick. Have the b$% earn his commission.” My, my, my.
When it comes to choosing home Inspectors, the more morose looking, the better. Usha and I finalized from our short-list by looking at the inspector’s mugshot:) on his website, I kid you not. He had the most “he even helped us walk away from the deal” kind of feedback on yelp, not to mention a few terrorized comments from sellers too. Little did we know then that once you select a home and initial offer is accepted, it becomes a self-fulfilling process: you love the home and need to make it happen.
Talking about the wall between buyer-seller, being a first-time buyer here in the US lets you get away with some naïve (or I like to call it ballsy:) stuff. Case in point: in the nerve wracking period after home inspection, when both sides are wondering who will blink first, I pick up the phone and call up the seller’s agent (you heard it right, the seller’s:). We were trying to get access for inspecting the attic and for the weirdest reason that was becoming a showstopper. I did get an earful from her about violating protocol (not working through my own realtor) and while this home finally did not work out, certainly enjoyed rocking the boat in hindsight.
Our realtor had provided Attorney references to choose from when it comes to closing. Its mostly a list of emails, an Attorney being a mythical being till it gets to the closing table. One of the Attorney emails was (I kid you not) Lawgoddess*@gmail.com. Unfortunately, her phone was not in service anymore because I remember thinking, “Wow! This is really the kind of Attorney that would spice up the world of Homebuyer Attorneys.” Any of you trying to email her, please do so at your own risk:) (but do share if you hear anything back, okay:)?
I started writing this blog when we started the process. I suffer from FOMO – Fear of Missing out, anxious that no priceless moment or detail slip through the memory cracks. Even as I was doing that, it was tempting to look ahead and write the perfect script: kind of like that movie where a newspaper group faced with dwindling sales orchestrates a political murder even as their lead reported is writing it up so as to have first mover advantage. So glad that we ended up not jinxing ourselves and it was a happy ending after all!
One thing I’m going to miss though is the crackling conversations with the 70-year landlord of the rental home we moved out of. Brash and humorous, as Italian as they come. Hard-hitting language without the polish or grammar, know what I mean?
“This tenant he used to smoke pot. I think both he and his wife used to smoke pot. His head would always be (showing a head bobbing expression) whenever I talked to him. In one of those states, he painted this door with the same ‘blister’ paint as this wall.”
Pushing back on our request to remedy the mushrooms that were growing wild in the backyard and are considered dangerous: “You just pick them up like this and put them in your mouth; don’t even have to cook them – very tasty.”
Talking about a previous tenant: “She was quite the woman! Used to run this dance school near the gas station nearby and most nights she would have her girls (students) over. They would be up dancing and partying and God knows what else because one night, the waterbed in the bedroom broke and there was water all over the house. The floors have never been the same since.”
And now what? Any major purchase – nay, even any major decision – will always be prefaced with: “Don’t forget, we have a home loan.” Another monthly mortgage will have Usha saying: “Not to get too excited, we just own a total of 2 kitchen tiles in all of the home so far:)”. And you know we’re amateurs when we talk manual drill and drill bits and get our homeowner high from putting up some picture frames on the wall and fixing a leaking pipe with some magic tape!
With parents visiting from India and family in the US visiting to celebrate Aakash' 10th, the last month has been an extended party with friends and family. Action-packed and enjoyable and could not have asked for a better way of housewarming.
In conclusion (to borrow from this post: A life in moves) - however painful (or joyful as this post would led you to believe:) moving may be, not moving is considered cowardice. Choosing not to move is not such a moving story.
Human nature has a bias for the bright side, a penchant for the promised land. We feel the sense of dislocation only during the act of moving: as soon as we’re moved, we have the urge to unpack and to feel settled and organized. All, so we can start thinking again in peace about the next move.
Some weeks ago, we made what I believed was the biggest move of our life so far?
