Buyer's Remorse

I went to a couple of open houses last weekend.  House #1 was just the right size, but needed too much work--only a little bit less than Z's house.  It was easier for me to pass this one up.  House #2 I visited only because I was already out and about.  It was missing some key features that I really want, so I wasn't particularly interested. 

Just what are those key features, you ask? 

Well, first, I don't want a condo.  That alone really narrows my options, but I've had enough of sharing walls or floors or ceilings with others, listening to their kids cry and their dogs bark.  And I don't want the hassle of homeowners association fees and joint decision-making. 

I do want 1,400 square feet of living space.  That's what we have now and it is the perfect size for us.  It gives us a comfortable living room, a dining room, an eat-in-kitchen, 3 bedrooms (one of which serves as the office/guest room and one which is smaller and has become our large walk-in closet), a healthy bathroom, a small pantry/laundry room and a deck.  This is enough space that we are not constantly on top of each other.  It is enough space that we can have guests and entertain.  It is enough space that we can fit all of our furniture and belongings, but not so much space that we don't think carefully about each purchase we make.  It is enough space that we are paying to heat or air condition the rooms we use, but not any rooms we don't use.  All that said, I would really love it if, within our 1,400 square feet we had a half-bath or second small bathroom.  That would be true perfection.

I want off-street parking, and ideally, a garage.  My car has spent its entire life in the rain and snow and sun.  It wants a little protection. 

I want an old house.  Sure, new houses are shiny and, well, new, but they tend to be flat and generic (in my humble opinion, no offense meant to any owners or lovers of new construction).  I love the character of an old space.  I love deep window sills and crown moulding and tall base boards.  And pocket doors; oh, how I swoon over pocket doors!  I love old hardwood that's been given a fresh finish, leaded glass built-ins and dense, 5-panel wooden doors. 

I do not want an open space floor plan.  As far as I can tell, the open space floor plan is the most over-rated design concept since the ranch style house (ranches, why be so flat when you can be tall?).  Sometimes GF and I want to watch different TV shows.  Sometimes one of us wants to listen to music without headphones.  Sometimes one of us wants to read.  If my kitchen, dining room and living room are all one huge room, an open space floor plan means that one of us is relegated to a bedroom if we want a little independent time.  And although we abide by a general rule to not go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink, our dishes aren't always washed the very moment we are done eating.  If we're watching a movie post-dinner, do we want to see still dirty dishes from the living room couch?  Hell, no. 

So, in a nutshell, I'm looking for a small single family that is probably about 100 years old with 3 bedrooms, a dining room, at least 1 1/2 baths, and a garage.  I anticipate some fixing-upping. 

Back to House #2.  House #2 was a single family attached house with only 1,200 square feet, no separate dining room, only one bathroom, and off-street parking but no garage.  Like I said, it was missing some key features.  But wouldn't you know it, as soon as I walked through the front door, I was completely charmed.  Completely charmed because if I were to design my house from scratch, absent the shortcomings already noted, it would look just like House #2. 

House #2 begins with a little postage stamp of a front yard, very cute and well maintained.  Upon entering the house, you step into a foyer-type room with beautiful leaded glass windows to the left and right, a narrow, vertical stained glass window that looks into the living room, and an original 10-glass panel door.  The entire house has wood floors--but not the typical modern hardwood.  These are the older, wider boards.  They are beautifully refinished, and their scars and imperfections only make them more lovely.  The living room has a leaded glass built-in, and a wood stove (not on my list of must-haves, but okay).  Although there is no dining room, the kitchen is eat-in with exposed brick, and, this is going to sound strange but you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that it is stunning, it has a ceiling of cherry wood. 

A lovely stairwell brings you to the second floor, which has 2 large bedrooms with good-sized closets (one of which is a cedar closet), and a bathroom that has undergone a full renovation (complete with skylight and radiant floor heating) while managing not to be overly renovated.  It still fit within the house.  All of the doors are the heavy multi-panel doors, stripped down to the natural wood and protected with a matte finish, just as I have done to my own doors in the past (it is a huge amount of work, but so worth it), and each with a different antique door knob.  Even the lighting fixtures are perfect--older, period pieces that are beautiful and not at all gaudy.  Pieces that undoubtedly took the owner much of the 20 years in which she lived in the house to find. 

Out the back door is a small deck and a pretty little yard.  It is landscaped with a curving slate path, all sorts of mature plantings, and a wonderful wooden fence/trellis/gate.  Even in February, it looked beautiful.  And few things look beautiful in this part of the world in February.

So charmed was I by this place, and so compelled by the idea of moving into a house and needing to do virtually nothing done to it, that I decided, to hell with detached living and an extra 300 square feet and a garage, I am going to make an offer.  I called my realtor and we made an appointment to fill out the paperwork first thing in the morning. 

That night, I could not sleep.  At all.  Each time I barely drifted off, a wave of nausea-inducing anxiety jerked me awake.  Was I really ready to waive so many of my criteria?  What if the attached neighbors have a dog, or children?!  What if I can hear the neighbors have sex?  What if they can hear us?  Where is GF's large bookcase going to fit?  And my poor car--it will be subjected to the elements for many more years to come.  What if--wood floors and cherry ceilings and leaded glass and heavy doors aside--what if this wasn't the right house for me after all?

I was still awake, and sick, when my alarm went off.  I considered calling my realtor and cancelling our meeting altogether.  I didn't.  But I ultimately decided that I wasn't going to go to the top of my budget on price.  You see, in Pretty Big City, you don't just have to pay asking price if you want to buy real estate, you have to pay above asking price.  Often 15 or 20% above.  The whole system is designed to turn every sale into a multiple offer situation.  When a new property is listed, no one is allowed to see it until the open house weekend, when everyone--often hundreds of people--see it at once.  Then, everyone has no more than 24 hours to submit their offer.  You have to go in with your top bid right off the bat because the seller reviews all of the offers received at once--usually that same day.

It's brutal on the potential buyer.  Simply brutal.

So, that sleepless night, while I tossed and turned and tried not to throw up, I weighed the pros and cons of this house, and the sheer enormity of any such purchase.  Although I was still going to make an offer, my offer was going to take into account the fact that I was making some real trade-offs.  I was still going to have to offer more than asking price, but I was not going to offer what I would if this house had everything that I wanted.  If someone out bid me, then so be it.  A higher bid would mean that someone else wanted the house more than me, and that would have to be okay. 

That day was pretty much a lost day at work.  I had no a ability to focus or concentrate.  I even cancelled a meeting that I was just too tired to face.  I didn't know if I was more afraid of getting the house, or not getting the house.  At 8pm my realtor delivered the news.  The seller had received 11 offers, and I'd been outbid.  At that moment, I finally felt calm.  I guess I had been more afraid of getting the house. 

I am sad to say goodbye to all of those special details, but I have to believe that this means that my house, the right house, is still out there somewhere.  I am anxious to finally make its acquaintance.  But until then, each time I am out in my neighborhood, with each house I pass, I can't help but to ask myself, are you the one?

Ode to Ponce de Leon - part 3

If you are in Florida for more than 5 minutes, you will find yourself on a Flagler Road or Street or Boulevard, or in a Flagler Park or auditorium, or something.  Turns out that this Flagler character is Henry Morrison Flagler, co-founder of Standard Oil with Henry Rockefeller, and the person credited with connecting Florida to the rest of the country by railroad. 

St. Augustine is home to a beautiful building that was once a posh hotel built by Flagler.  It is now the main building on Flagler College campus.

Welcome to Flagler College.

Rotunda in the entryway.

Flagler College has more Tiffany glass than any building in the United States.  Or maybe it was the world.  I loved this window.

Dining hall detail.  YOUR college dining hall looked just like this, right?

Another dining hall detail.  Love these ships.  Love.

Happy Valentines Day!

Much love to all of you!

GF got us yummy heart cakes and dressed them up with strawberries and homemade pink whipped cream.  And I managed to be home by 8pm!  Scrumptious on both accounts.

Ode to Ponce de Leon - part 2

On day two in St. Augustine we....

...toured the Castillo de San Marco,...

...where we saw this copper canon,...

...and this view from the top.

We also visited every shop along St. George's Street,...

...and stumbled upon this little marketing piece in a cafe window.



Ode to Ponce de Leon

Last month work sent me to a week-long conference in Florida.  I know, a winter conference in Florida--cry me a river, right? 

It seemed a shame to spend the entirety of a perfectly good trip to the subtropics in overly air conditioned conference rooms, so GF flew down at the end of the week.  We rented a car and drove to St. Augustine for a few days.

For those unfamiliar with it, St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States.  The area was first explored by Ponce de Leon in 1513, and the city was founded in 1565.  It is still repleat with old Spanish buildings that now house lots of shops, cafes, restaurants and other pretty and interesting sights.  Like these, seen on our first day there....

The oldest wooden schoolhouse in the country.

Complete with a creepy mannequin peering out through the front dormer window.

A beautiful sunset over the Castillo de San Marco.

  

A festival of lights.  Here is the aptly named Lightner Museum.

Big Law: Real Estate Heartache, part 4: Less Heartache (v. More Headache)

Z closed on the house recently.  The sales price is public information, and it took no effort at all to discover that she paid nearly $65,000 above the asking price.  In some small way it helps to alleviate my heartache to know that I would not have gotten the house even if I had made an offer, because I would not have offered that much.  I had been carrying around my ficticious offer number in my head, but it was not that number. 

Thus, now seems the appropriate time to present to you part 2 of the More Headache v. Less Heartache: Why Walking Away From this House was the Best Decision I've Ever Made series.  Part 1 can be found here. 

Part 2:  Less Heartache

Time and again, I take consolation in just two things when I am pining away for the house.  These things are, simply, (1) time, and (2) money.

Time:  My life is relatively uncomplicated compared to many (read, I have no children to tend to).  However, my time feels no less scarce.  My professional life is very important to me.  I want to do well in my career.  I want to become a leader within my firm and my field.  This requires that my job is, on most days, my top priority. 

In my first couple of years as an associate, I could make my job my top priority and still end up with a smidgeon of evening time and my entire weekend at my disposal.  But I've learned that this changes as you move up the associate ladder.  As your knowledge and skill level increases, so does the work.  More complex work.  Work that requires issue spotting and problem solving, rather than mere execution of the solutions that others have already developed for the issues they've already spotted. 

I've also learned that important to becoming highly regarded within one's firm is becoming highly regarded outside of one's firm.  Two years ago, while a second year associate, I made it a New Years resolution to become nominated to a bar association committee.  By the end of that year, I was on three committees.  These are very rewarding, but can also require several hours of work each week.  I've recently begun to receive invitations to present at continuing education programs.  These are wonderful opportunties for a variety of reasons, but require dozens of hours of work.  As a result, I've worked at least one day nearly every weekend beginning this past summer, and currently log the third highest hours of any associate in my firm.  My average work day is 12 hours, and when I arrive home around 10pm each night, I am brain dead.  I eat the dinner GF has made for me, watch some simple minded television in an attempt to decompress, and crawl into bed.  On weekends I go the gym, clean the apartment, run my errands, and do laundry and ironing.  I try to find a few hours on top of all of that to do something fun.  Because it is important to have a little adventure in one's life.

So while there is a big part of me that loves the idea of owning a neglected old house, lovingly restoring it to its original glory, and ultimately ending up with a home that will be exactly what I want it to be because I've made all of the decisions all along the way, in reality, I don't have the time.  Moreover, to a certain degree, my sanity hinges on coming home to a pretty and clean apartment, in which I can relax at the end of the long workday.  I enjoy working on home improvement projects, but not to the exclusion of being able to come home to an environment where the weight of the day can slowly melt away.  If every night I was confronted with a house that needed to be rehabbed from top to bottom and from inside out, I would be leaving a long office to-do list only to step into an even longer home to-do list.  A home to-do list with no time to accomplish anything on it.  For me, that is the equivalent of stepping out of the anxiety frying pan and into the anxiety fire.

Money:  I don't want to be so house poor that I must give up the quality of life that I have worked so hard to achieve (notwithstanding the long work days).  I traded a successul first career where I made a comfortable living to embark on a new career with the potential to make an even better living.  College, graduate school and law school required a series of years that add up to a nearly decade-long ramen noodle lifestyle.  Paying off my undergraduate, graduate and law school student loans required several more years of a speghetti and jar sauce lifestyle.  I finally have a little bit of financial wiggle room again.  I can finally go on vacations again.  Like the few days I spent in beautiful St. Augustine, Florida earlier this month. 

Sunset over St. Augustine from the Lions Bridge, Sunday, January 15, 2012

And I can finally make non-essential purchases without having to study an Excel spread sheet to figure out what I can trim from my budget to pay for it.  Like this lovely yellow bag and matching wallet that caught my eye last month.

Hobo International's "Florence" line

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I still hope to purchase a house sometime in the next several months.  But a different house.  A house that, although it might need some work, will still allow me the time and money to live the life that I am lucky enough to now live. 

Big Law: Love Is...

Love is...sharing a printer.

I don't have my own printer at work.  I share with Assigning Partner. 

One recent evening, Assigning Partner busted into my office and declared, "Now that I am done being apoplectic, I can show this to you."

In her hand was an email sent to and printed from a a generically named personal email account.  The email began, "Congratulations, you have been selected for an interview at Other Big Law Firm."

Assigning Partner thought that the email belonged to me, seeing how we share the printer, and ran down the hall to another partner's office all, well, "apoplectic".

It wasn't mine.  But it is nice to know one is appreciated.

(Turns out the email belonged to a temp secretary that we all really like and would like to be able to find a permanent position for.)