As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Jon and I went on an exploratory house hunt the weekend after Christmas and we were very excited to find that we can afford a lot more house than what we originally thought we could thanks in part to the falling interest rates. After the past couple of years of living in a cozy one bedroom condo, we are obviously thrilled at the prospect of having more than 690 square feet of living space. Just the thought of being able to cook in the kitchen at the same time or not sharing the bathroom sink or having a spare bedroom for guests tickles me pink.
Before we can even consider buying a new home, however, there are a few obstacles in our way. The most glaringly terrifying and important one, of course, is selling our condo. We bought our home right before we got married in the summer of 2006, when it was still a seller's market, which means that we paid a whole lot more than what they're going for now. As you might remember, we've done a lot of upgrades in the past 2½ years: installed granite countertops in our kitchen and bathroom, installed stainless steel hardware on all of the cabinetry, installed a beautiful vessel sink in the bathroom, installed gorgeous and eco-friendly bamboo hardwood floors in the dining area and living room and have painted every room except for our bedroom.
There are still a few to-dos on our home improvement list such as replacing the carpet in the bedroom and putting a backsplash in the kitchen but before we put any more money into our condo, we want to meet with a realtor to see if it would help with our home value at all. We have an appointment with a local realtor tomorrow in which he'll do a basic walk through of our place and then we'll meet with him again on Wednesday so that we can talk numbers. Cross your fingers that we'll get positive feedback!
If selling our condo turns out to be easier than expected, then the only other worry we have is finding new jobs for the both of us. I've been casually looking for the past couple of months and so far the job market seems to be pretty dismal. It's just our luck that both the housing market and the job market is down just when we need to delve into them! I'll be sure to keep you all posted along the way, but for now I've been preoccupied with decluttering our place and pre-emptively searching for a new home. It's kind of disheartening actually...I've found several gorgeous houses with a big yard and everything else we're looking for, but we can't do anything about it until the other pieces fall into place. Le sigh!
P.S. I think those of us in the "hair grows back coarser and darker boat" totally won this unofficial poll, but it seems there are some lucky girls out there who don't share our problem!
