On Rolling With The Punches…

This has been a very interesting week. Last week at this time (I’m writing this Thursday night) was just a regular evening at my apartment. Some sort of dinner was made, I was surfing the internet, emailing with the ladies about upcoming posts, and Conor was next to me on the couch. The next morning, I woke up to an email from our landlords that they were putting our place (their condo) on the market and that their real estate agent would be in touch about setting up an open house. They would, of course, honor our lease through July 31st.

Fast forward to Monday where we put an offer on a house we saw on Sunday, had it accepted Tuesday, and I just spent 40 minutes of my Thursday evening trying to decipher the huge packet of paperwork the mortgage company sent me and expects back by Tuesday. Whirlwind doesn’t begin to describe it.

This would be the point where I recognize that this scenario is certainly a First World Problem and start listing all the things that I’m lucky and grateful to have while simultaneously apologizing for presenting this as a worrisome scenario in the first place. Let’s not and say we did ok?

What I’m trying to illustrate is that this week showed me (again) that the universe does not operate on my timetable yet, perhaps it does. My husband and I have been talking about buying a house for a long time. We’ve been lucky and frugal enough to be in the financial position to do so. I’ve spent hours wistfully looking through online listings and even put it on my damn 30 Before Thirty list. Would you believe me if I said that two weeks ago I came to terms with the fact that it wasn’t going to happen by October (boo hoo, poor little me…I get it)? Conor and I decided that we should save up for a while longer. I told myself to stop worrying about the real estate market recovering and prices getting out of our reach. We had lots of things to do this year and buying a house would just over-complicate things.

Ring ring…Universe calling…

While that email turned our world upside down a bit, it provided the scary kick in the pants we needed to take the next step and explore home ownership. The rental market in Boston is insane right now and having lived in this apartment for three years with minimal rent increases, we weren’t prepared for the prices we were seeing out there. Buying a condo just wasn’t a good option for us so we turned towards the suburbs and the commuter rail.

Obviously, nothing is set in stone and a lot of things could still go wrong. We have the home inspection next week from my research, a million little things can go wrong between now and our closing to sabotage the whole deal. I’ve decided that I’m just going to roll with it. I’ve got a party to go to this weekend and that’s what I’m focused on. Things will come as they will and I can honestly say that I’m excited to see what’s next. Keep your fingers crossed for us though because if all goes well, there will be a lot more posts to come as we tackle it all!

Happy weekend all!

xoxo
Kate

Images from Kate Nash’s album artwork for “Made of Bricks” by Illustrator Chrissie Macdonald via