Holy Crap! We bought a house!

I know! It's a totally insane thing to do, and one that I hadn't even considered doing in the next 10 years. A condo, maybe but not an honest-to-goodness house. With a yard. And a sundeck. But we're doing it. Yep. Lots of debt for the next 21 years or so. But a house too. Cool.

The plan started to hatch in the summer when Mum decided that she had to do something about her housing situation - living in a big ole townhouse by herself. She's been there a long time and has great relationships with several neighbours but is paying far too much for one person to be living there. We jokingly started discussing her options when she semi-jokingly suggested we all get a house together (with 2 separate suites, of course). I spoke to Theovis and we realized that this would give us the jump start we needed, since saving for a downpayment when rent is so high in Vancouver is nigh impossible. If we could find a place that suited all three of us then Mum could kick in the downpayment, and Theovis and I could take care of the monthly mortgage payments, while building equity in something, rather than just chucking money down the rent drain (although the person whose mortgage we're currently paying is seriously disappointed).

We hooked up with a realtor that friends had used and loved - Maggie Wealls, for those of you who are interested - and started our search for a home. We had a limited price range due to my self employment and Theovis' (then) lack of steady pay, and almost everything we looked at was total shite. Eep! Theovis went out and found a job, which almost immediately bumped us up to a higher price range, allowing us to view houses that didn't look like they should be bulldozed and started again from scratch. A drive-by of the one we bought didn't elicit much enthusiasm but it was in a good location, so we decided to give it a go. It was really good! There must be a problem...

We took a look at a few more places, keeping this one in mind but didn't see anything else that really caught our eye. The suite for Mum was missing a kitchen so we took a contractor our realtor knew and trusted in to take a look at what he could do with the laundry area. He gave us a reasonable quote and said as he was leaving "It's a good house. Buy it." There was a final prospect we wanted to see before making any decision- which involved a protracted battle with an elderly Chinese woman whose ad mentioned she was a "motivated seller" but wouldn't return her realtor's phone calls - but once we were inside, we knew it wasn't the one. We decided to go for it and make an offer.

The offer/counter offer process took place at McDonald's late one Sunday evening. Why there? I don't know. Perhaps the seller was jonesing for Filet o' Fish. Anyway, we sat in the charming atmospehere for a couple of hours and by the time we left, we were buying a house (on condition of inspection etc.).

We met with the inspector a few days later and checked the place out thoroughly. Apparently the current tenant was telling all sorts of tales, we're assuming because he didn't want to move, because they didn't check out as the Inspector looked around. After he explained everything to us, we decided to go for it (much to the tenant's disappointment, he received notice that night).

So, yeah. We're moving at the end of the month. Lots of packing. Lots of fun! Argh! I'm looking forward to it, although I'm going to miss being so close to so many friends and chatting with Frenchie a lot, though it might improve our relationship if we don't interact every day. I'm not going to miss the squeegee kids and the creeps either asking for bus transfers or trying to sell bus transfers every time you approach a ticket machine. I am going to miss the treadmill. I'm not going to miss the epic trek to the garbage room. I am going to miss the view. I am not going to miss the needle packages discarded on the sidewalk.

Soon we will be living upstairs in a 2 bedroom place with a nice big front yard and a small back yard. Sitting on the sundeck, sipping hot chocolate in the cold winter rain, I mean, sipping caesars at sunset, while Mum bustles downstairs in her (totally separate) suite. It will be an adventure, anyway...