Hou Hunting

Almost every time we get in the car after dinner or on the weekend, Felix asks "hou? hou?" As in, are we going to see a house?

It seems like every day something comes on the market that's almost exactly what I'm looking for. I'm trying to strike a balance between giving "maybes" a chance without wasting my agent's time, so I went to a couple of open houses today.

One was great, except it had a small back yard that faced a noisy 5-lane road and the view from the backyard is the giant signage of a lumber yard. It also smelled like other people.

The next house was a ton of space for the money, but the street it's on is just bizarre. There are 6 houses, but not in line with each other, with driveways coming from all different directions, and if you look out the front window of the house for sale, you are looking at someone else's tiny back yard. It's like 6 different developers grabbed scraps of land and built what they could with no regard for aesthetics or livability.

This is an older maps view. Two houses have been randomly added at the end of the street, but not next to each other or facing the same direction. I'm not even sure how they access their driveways.

I also looked at a sweet brick house from the 50s earlier this week. I loved half of it and the other half was a deal breaker, like the washer/dryer hookups in the kitchen and one of the showers in a poorly added-on space near the garage.

We're going to Utah this weekend to have a little road trip and see family, so I'll be on a forced break from house hunting at least for a few days. Probably good since I've been dreaming about it many nights!

Finally showing a little interest in Spanish Sesame Street while I finish this post.

Let the Games Begin

Late Friday I noticed a new house listing pop up on my real estate app. Great size, location and price. My agent is out of town all week, but I had a feeling the house could go fast so he arranged for someone else to take me to see it Saturday at noon.

Overall it looked good - my only real concern was the old windows - and I started to get excited about possibly making an offer. I called my agent and broker to get things moving, and Felix and I went out to lunch. I started pricing out what it would cost to replace the windows and update the interior trim and doors, getting advice from friends who've done both. The plan was to negotiate a lower price largely due to the windows.

By the time I got home, and before we could put my offer together, we learned that 2, then 3 offers had already been submitted, ALL above asking price (which was reasonable to begin with). The listing agent was encouraging everyone to submit their "best and final offers". It was feeling like a mad dash between a whole bunch of parties, none of whom had any idea what was really going on. The house had been on the market for about 18 hours at this point.

I took a minute to collect my thoughts and decided not to fight for it. It would have been easy to let my stubborn and competitive nature take over, but the bottom line is that the house isn't worth what they're getting for it.

I went back and looked at the agent's email answer about the windows, and they're 24 years old. And the big shocker - their utility bills are more than double what I've been paying, for just 40% more space. I had also realized at some point that there's no kitchen pantry. I'd be surprised if the bidders thought about either of those two things.

So in the end I'm glad I didn't get carried away in the emotion of making an offer. Hopefully all the hubub about this house was just due to a long winter with few listings, and isn't indicative of what I'm in for this spring!

Testing, Testing...1, 2

There must be a documented phase around 21 months because I know I'm not the only one dealing with this. Felix is in a new "testing" phase. Testing all the things he knows he's not supposed to do or touch, usually at a rapid-fire pace that renders my redirection technique pretty worthless.

The past few days I've especially noticed it at home in the evenings before dinner. I see his activity as one of those Family Circus cartoons with the dashed lines, going from the gum in my purse to my Nook to the cat food to the dog water to the silverware drawer to the dining room chair where he climbs up on the table and takes a bite out of an orange he doesn't want.

When I ask him to "put it back" or "sit down please" or "let's go into the living room and play with your balloon!" he starts convulsing and crying and usually throws his head back and hits his head on something. He wails hard for a few seconds, then turns it off like a switch and goes to do something else. I take that as proof he is testing me.

I hope that consistently enforcing the rules gets us through this phase fast.

Single Dads by Choice

Last night Felix and I went to hang out and have dinner with auntie and cousins. It was a fun night with lots of playing, chasing and tug-of-warring over toys. One of my brother's friends (J) was there as well, and after dinner he built a pretty sweet fort for the kids in the living room.

Felix was perched on the edge of the couch frame in the middle of the fort, about 36" from the ground, and I encouraged him to "jump!" He'd been sort-of jumping off the edge of the pool to me in swimming lessons. With my encouragement, he went for it. It was a clumsy jump but he landed on pillows and was very pleased with himself. He got back up on the couch and did it over and over, saying "dowp! dowwwp!" Cousin Hayden decided he wanted to jump too, so he joined in the fun.

Back at the dining room table, J started talking about how he really wants kids. I've overheard snippets of conversation that lead me to believe he's been doing the online dating thing without much luck. He's sort of in between the "I don't want to do it alone..." and "It would be better than never having kids..." phases, a feeling I'm sure a lot of us know very well. I also remember the feeling of being in a house full of fun kids and wishing I had my own.

We talked briefly about what his options would be - adoption or a surrogate? And I remembered a social worker telling me it wasn't very common for single men to adopt, but that sometimes they're needed in foster care situations when a child has been severely traumatized by females. It seemed unfair to reduce the hopeful single father to extremely traumatized children. Also unfair that it probably takes them longer to adopt and costs more if they want a bio kid, since they have to pay for not only an egg donor, but a surrogate. Also unfair that donated eggs cost a lot more than sperm (assumption, based on what I know egg donors are paid), and that egg donors are usually (always?) unknown, unlike so many kids who will be able to meet their sperm donors later. And of course, when using a surrogate, they have to go straight to IVF, another added expense.

I did a little online research and the good news is that there is definitely a growing number of men choosing to be single dads. There's even a hotline they can call with questions. NPR did a story on it in 2012. http://www.npr.org/2012/06/19/154860588/single-dads-by-choice-more-men-going-it-alone

I know a couple of guys aside from J who would make great dads and who I assume want kids, but a partner is nowhere in sight. The next time conversation heads in that direction, I'll make sure they know they aren't weird or creepy for wanting kids as a single guy, and that there is support for them.

It's funny to think this is an area where women have gained societal acceptance faster than men. No thanks to society itself, but rather to the women who made it happen and then started proving our kids turn out great.