Houses Encore...

We've only seen two houses in the past week. This sorry progress is due to us limiting ourselves to two, just TWO, fabulously perfect neighborhoods. But there's a really serious lack of interesting listings....we keep getting listings from neighborhoods we told our realtor we don't want to live in. Some of the houses look great. Maybe we need to buy a lot and a big truck and haul one over to our Chosen Community...

One house we saw last night was superbly located. The lot was positively shady in the evening light with several huge trees, and the back garden was splendidly appointed with several types of trees and all manner of colourful flora. The house was solid, architecturally refined, clean, large, perfectly perfect except....OUTDATED! Nothing had been updated inside the house. It looked like it was built yesterday and never lived in, it was that clean, but the decor was pure 1973. Think shag carpets and swag lights. Ugly kitchen cupboards, thick carpet, dreary dark library panelling (that I am hungry to paint a buttery cream), those dark spindle-posts everywhere. The bathrooms were dated, dull, clean but decorated in *peach* no less. The earnest home sellers even had a note in the bathroom saying "the tile is beige...it just looks peach in the light". Ok, so it's beige. Big deal. It looks peach!!

Anyway, we debated and deliberated and pondered and listened to our collective guts and hearts and decided not to make an offer right away because (a) it needs $100,000 in renovations, (b) it is perfectly liveable as is, but we want $100,000 for renovation (c) we don't want to renovate and (d) the clincher...despite it's literally depressing perfection, it had a musty smell and an un-insulated basement.

This morning, at our request, our realtor called to ask the seller's agent for a copy of their utility bills (how many thousands of dollars in heating bills will a 1973 house with little or no insulation require in a -40C Canadian winter???)

Well, he called me back by 10am to tell me that the house had already SOLD last night, after ONE DAY on the market with NO CONDITIONS. He assumed it was bought by a developer (or other disgustingly rich people) to likely GUT and renovate.

We felt ill. And apparently they got more than their $480,000 asking price. Our learning from this was that if we see something we like, we need to jump on it. It was a good practice run since we didn't really want the house but despaired over what if we had wanted it?

Which reminds me of a wonderful quote by Robertson Davies:
"If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get".

Let the games begin...