If all goes as planned, in one week Brent and I will be closing escrow on our first home. Exactly two years ago
we put the dream of homeownership aside and decided instead to become parents through international adoption. Over the past year we've been in the thick of it - the thick of learning to be parents, grieving the lost freedom and inherent selfishness of our past lives, and helping our kids free themselves of some of the trauma life has thrown at them.
Like most of the big moves Brent and I make in life, the road to homeownership was a bit haphazard. A bit of energy presented itself, and we opened ourselves up to the possibilities it promised. From there things just happened as they do.
Our neighbor, Roman, who happens to be Ethiopian (one of the few in Ventura) also happens to be a realtor. Since meeting after the kids joined our family, Roman has become a welcome part of our circle. Scared at first of the lady that spoke to them in Amharic (scared because she couldn't remember to how to speak back and scared because he is still afraid someone's going to take him back to Ethiopia some day), our kids have opened up to the woman that dotes on them like only another Ethiopian can. Brent and I have embraced Roman's presence in our lives too - both forever changed by late night stories (with or without the assistance of a bottle of wine) of Ethiopia's history that you can't read in a history book, told and lived by the woman who sits across our dining room table from us.
When Roman suggested we look at a few houses with her we first said yes primarily just to be polite. We knew we needed to move out of our current rental. Our two bedroom bungalow just wasn't working for our little family anymore, but we were pretty certain we didn't yet have enough of a downpayment saved to enter the housing market again. We had been looking at new rentals, but with very little motivation. The thought of moving again, especially into a house that wasn't ours, was just too overwhelming.
When, on the first night of looking at houses, we fell in love with a house we went with it. We applied and were pre-approved for a mortgage. We tried not to think too deeply about the immediacy of whole thing and let ourselves buy into the idea that that's how things work for us - we open ourselves to possibilities and good things present themselves. Charmed by the quarter acre lot (more chickens! maybe some ducks! an orchard and a huge garden! maybe another pitbull!), the half finished second unit downstairs (grandparents quarters!), the affordable price, and, of course, the turret (yes, it had a turret), the visions of our family's future formed rapidly. We made an offer. After speaking with the seller's agent we convinced ourselves it was in the bag, and we crashed hard when the owner made a totally counter-intuitive decision and accepted the only other offer on the house instead. We were put on contingent back-up, but let the dream die as day ten rolled around and it looked certain that the buyer wasn't backing out.
Roman kept on us, and we trudged along looking at more houses, trying to define what would work and what wouldn't for our little family. I may have cried a few times overwhelmed by the process and the lack of habitable housing in our price range. The housing market in Ventura is crazy right now, especially in the low-end of the market - the end of the market where working-class families like ours fall in this sunny surfer's town adjacent the great Pacific Ocean. There are very few good houses on the market. When something of any quality hits the MLS listing it is sold within 24 hours, usually for $20-30 thousand more than the asking price. Most houses have ten offers or more within the first day of being listed. Many buyers are investors with cash in hand. First-time homebuyers with FHA loans can't really compete.
When the next house rolled around we were much more tempered in our excitement. Despite the fact that I was convinced I wanted to put an offer on it the moment we walked in the door, I didn't get caught up in the dream. In fact, I hardly thought about it as we signed page after page of our offer. When we lost this second house too, I kind of just accepted it and kept looking.
Fast forward a few weeks. I'm sitting at my desk with another hour or so to go at work. My phone chimes with a text from Roman.
The James house looks like its falling out of escrow. I think we can get it. Are you still interested? You see, Roman is persistent. When she found out we lost the second house she didn't just give up and move on like we did. She kept calling the agent. She explained that we had a couple of kids adopted from Ethiopia and that she was Ethiopian so she considers us family and was putting in some extra effort to get us a house we wanted. She learned that the agent had a son traveling to volunteer in an Ethiopian orphanage in a few weeks. The human connection was made - six degrees of separation, Roman explained. She told us she would know for sure in the morning whether or not we had a shot at the house.
Later that night as Brent and wrapped up the day and let ourselves get just a little bit excited about the James house, Roman called. "The turret house just fell out of escrow. Do you still want it? The agent wants to know tonight. It's yours if you want it." Suddenly Brent and I found ourselves in that horrible place we often do where we have too many good choices. Turret house or James? Choosing one meant loosing the other. They were really different. The turret house was on the west side, a little bit out of town, near the kids' school and just outside of the floodplain of one of Ventura's three major rivers. It was habitable as is, but needed a lot of work. Brent wasn't sure it would be an easy house to work on. It was less expensive and had tons of charm. The James house was right in the middle of town, close to Trader Joes. It had no curb appeal. It was in a decent part of town and had much more promise for appreciation and easy resale in the future. It was also habitable as is, with a great floor plan for modifications in the future. It had a decent sized lot with enough room for our current nine chickens and two pitbulls - likely no new additions. We panicked. We called parents and paced around the house. We called Roman several times and asked her nonsensical questions. How were we supposed to decide?
In years past, I think the decision would have been easy - we would have quickly rekindled our original dream and bought the turret house and all the challenges that would have went with it. The challenges would have been a selling point. But now, things have changed. We're not living the adventurous lifestyle we once did. A house with a few good challenges just adds to the daily challenges we already face. We can hardly stay on top of picking up after the dogs at our current house; how were we going to manage a quarter acre? After a lengthy comparison process the choice became clear. We called Roman and told her we wanted the James house. After all, coincidences aren't to be ignored; we couldn't disregard the Ethiopian connection.
So that's it. In one week we close escrow. The whole process has been remarkably smooth. Just a few months ago we were trying to motivate ourselves to find a new rental. Brent has inspected every square inch of the house and deemed it solid with plenty of projects to keep him busy. I can't wait to finally capitalize on his honed homebuilding talent. I drive around neighborhoods with similar 50's tract homes (they are predominant in Ventura for the most part) and try to figure out how we can give our little box a facelift and add a little character. The kids ask daily for confirmation that life won't change too much at our new house. Will we bring the computer? What about our sheets? Our clothes? The table? Our toys? They're starting to warm up to the idea and have picked out colors for their rooms - pink, red and green for Elsa (I have a vision; I think I can make it work) and blue, green, and orange for Ashagre.
The thing that's surprised me most about this whole experience is how little it has freaked me out. I really have been doing some growing over the past few months. We're committing to putting down some serious roots, and, for the most part, I'm sleeping through the night. I'm not worrying about potential opportunities missed as we tie ourselves down further. In fact, I feel quite at peace about the whole decision.
This afternoon Elsa and I joined my friend Jeanine and her baby Abby for a stroll around the Seabridge development in Oxnard (think large, brand new high-end tract homes with private boat slips in the back and multi-million dollar yachts tethered to them). As we neared the end of our loop, Jeanine and Elsa decided we should go down on the dock and see what fish people were catching. A middle-aged couple warmly greeted us as they pulled mackerel after mackerel out of the water. In minutes Elsa was holding a pole with "Uncle Frank" patiently teaching her the finer art of fishing, effortlessly soothing her nearly omnipresent frenzied energy with his Hawaiian aloha. As I watched calm overtake her as she attentively listened to Uncle Frank, my easy acceptance of the home buying process was made clear. Yes, we're putting down roots here and we're doing it in the characterless tract home rather than the funky house with the turret. We've remained open and let the energy guide us and we're doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing.
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| (Soon to be) our house. |
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| Living room. |
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| Living room, front door, dining area. |
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| Tiny kitchen with a dishwasher! and plenty of room to expand. |
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| Garage with a perfect spot for the chickens behind it and the metal shed. |
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The back yard and lovely (said with much sarcasm) covered back porch.
A blank slate, right? |
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| Elsa, her mackerel, and Uncle Frank. |
