Saturday, March 18, 2006

House Hunting

Nanu and I have been looking at houses the past month, since we plan to buy one pretty soon. Luckily for us, the houses seem very affordable in this part of the country.

Because we are first time home buyers we've been reading up and researching big time about how the whole process works.

So today, we decided to go for this real estate auction - as we've never been to one before. Oh my, was that a unique experience or what! Our realtor, L, this really frank, knowledgeable and very 'with it' lady came with us and much to our surprise decided to bid for the house herself. So right in the middle of the auction, here she was by our side happily bidding. All she'd do was nod her head and signal with her eyes and the bid would go up by a thousand dollars. It was such a surreal experience.

A couple of people bid more and within about ten minutes the house was sold to the highest bidder who won by just bidding 500 bucks more.

After the auction, Nanu asked our realtor, "Did you really plan to buy that house?"

And she said with a twinkle in her eye, "If I had got it at the price I bid for, why not?" Yeah it would have been a great investment then, for she would have just put it on the real estate market and sold it for a lot higher than that.

"I wonder how you'd have explained it to your husband, if you'd won the auction!" laughed Nanu.

In my mind I can just picture her explaining, "Well Honey, my clients were interested in the real estate auction, but I got carried away and just decided to bid on the spur of the moment. So here we are - the proud owners of another home!" That would have been hilarious if she had won.

After all that excitement, L showed us two beautiful houses this morning. And it looks like we are in love finally. I'm talking about the houses of course.

One seems a bit overpriced but is drop dead beautiful and the other - a foreclosed home - seems totally under priced and unbelievable value for the sheer size and amenities it offers. Much to our delight it even has a great little deck in the back and a huge backyard!

We've decided to make an offer for the under priced place. Keeping our fingers crossed. The offer goes through on Monday. Who knows, in a couple of days Nanu and I could be the proud owners of a new home...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoa, that's like, grown-up and stuff... :)

PJ said...

Yeah, it's such a grown up thing to do...Oh gosh, are we growing old or what?

PJ said...

Oh we havent bought a new home as yet. Just planning on making the initial offer. Still a long way to go, Shree!
But yes, its a very exciting time in our lives...

PJ said...

Yeah after some research we realized that its cheaper to get a loan and buy a house than just rent a house every month. Renting seems like you're just dropping money into a big black hole.

PJ said...

You are welcome anytime Abby. It would be great to have you here. Pico would smother you with kisses!