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August 20, 2003
The Real Estate Whirlwind and Other Headaches
Sometime this spring, I started getting the renters’ itch. I think it corresponded with Dan being bitten by our landlady’s dog (twice, once in each leg). I didn’t think we’d move this year, but sometime during 2004 or 2005 seemed likely—around the same time Dan gets a job teaching, so we’d be able to locate relatively near his workplace. As the summer got hotter and mortgage rates kept dropping, my curiosity about real estate spread to checking the newspaper’s home section and picking up flyers from every neighborhood sign I saw. It wasn’t until the rates began increasing that I decided a call to our financial advisor was in order. Our finance guy is Mr. Stocks Are Always Best, so when he told us that if we plan to buy in the next few years, we should be doing it now, I got serious.
By mid-July when we got the go-ahead from Mr. Stocks, I was 8 or 9 weeks pregnant and it looked like the baby was going to stick. Our rental situation had deteriorated further—the landlady hadn’t cut the weeds in the backyard all season, leaving three feet of mosquito-attracting nastiness swaying in the wind. Also, she left her back door open to allow the dog free range of the yard at all times. Unfortunately for us, her back door opens to the back stairway (we live in a duplex above her). Have I mentioned her mini-cigars and the stench they leave behind? The minute I got that positive pregnancy test my nose went into overdrive, and even going into our kitchen (that connects with the back stair) was difficult with her cigar-smell wafting its way up to us. To sum up, I don’t want to enter the stairway because of the odor. Dan doesn’t want to because he fears the dog (which for some reason stays away from me, but goes into a howling rampage when Dan is near). Our laundry didn’t get done for weeks. I finally gave up on our ever going downstairs and called my mother, who took pity on me for feeling icky day after day after day, and did all eight loads for us. I had hoped to just use her machine myself, but she wouldn’t hear of it. A few weeks later, we did bring a car full of clothes over to their house and washed them between other activities. I appreciate the free laundry at our duplex, but getting past the icky stairway to use the ancient, slow machines is too much to ask a first trimester preggo. But I digress…
My casual house hunting had told me that finding a home in our neighborhood that we could afford without selling our souls was not going to happen. I considered leaving the city for the ‘burbs until I realized that wouldn’t be any cheaper unless we wanted an hour-plus commute. Forget that. My mom recommended a particular St Paul neighborhood near her school (she teaches high school Spanish) and began driving up and down its streets every day searching for ‘For Sale’ signs. I called a real estate agent who is a family friend of Dan’s and began looking for mortgage people.
That weekend (we’re up to July 17-20th here—did I say I wouldn’t be recapping my missing month? Whoops) I flew to Portland for a friend’s wedding. I was nine weeks pregnant and shared the news with the dozen or so college friends who also attended. I gave them the clear to tell anyone else they wanted as soon as I had my CNM appointment, which was still a couple days away. After four years of school, and two years post-graduation with various weddings to gather us together, I realized that I have no idea when I’ll see them again. Geez, it still depresses me to think about it. At least my high school friends fly in from around the country to see their parents every December. Anyway, I didn’t do a whole lot of house hunting from the Pacific Northwest. Oh—just for the record, the quasi-morning sickness that settled on me early lifted on Tuesday, July 8th. That morning I felt wretched, and that was the end. I was queasy from week 4 to week 8, but that was it. Never even threw up. The exhaustion didn’t disappear quite so easily, but I have nothing to complain about.
That next week, I called the mortgage broker recommended to me by Mr. Stocks and looked at the property listings online that our agent sent us. When Friday came and the mortgage guy hadn’t contacted us, I called him again to get him moving on our pre-approval.
The last week in July, I scheduled a meeting with a Big Bank’s mortgage guy and called a credit union (both of whom I heard happy tales about from coworkers). Mr. Credit Union seemed to have high rates and required a $60 deposit, so I decided that two mortgage pre-approvals would be enough to choose from.
Tuesday, August 5th, our agent drove us to seven different houses in South Minneapolis. (My last entry talks about August 4th, so keep in mind that we’d run around that day too.) Some of them were in amazing states of disrepair (don’t people at least try to sweep all the mess off the floor before showing their house?), a few had been attacked by some horrible decorative tastes, and at least three were so close to the airport flight paths that they’d been soundproofed. One was actually across the street from the airport, where there was a barbed wire fence along the property. Two were worthy of more than a 30 second glance. The first had been built in 1958, decorated that year, and the owners had neither moved nor redecorated since. All the wallpaper would have to go, along with the flooring, but the thick tile and original cupboards were so fifties, they were cute. The last house was perfect. It had just gone on the market that evening, we were the first to look at it, the floors were hardwood, the walls looked good, the appliances looked fine, it had an expansion space that was used as a playroom. I was sold. We talked to the agent, we talked to each other, and we decided to put an offer on it—full asking price, no conditions.
Wednesday, our agent came over at 7:30am so we could sign all the necessary documents. She told us we should hear something shortly. By lunch she called to say that they had another offer and the sellers’ agent would present both to them at 8pm. We upped our offer by a thousand and verified that we could indeed close by September 5th like they wanted. At 10pm she called to say they’d decided to sit on it overnight. We demanded an answer by noon. At 1:30, I called our agent nearing panic mode. She said they’d tell us by 2pm. At 2:15, she finally called back. Although they’d sworn to us that they were only dealing with the two offers, a third one had appeared, and they’d taken one of the others. Freakin’ jerks. By then, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen, and I was more pissed that they’d dragged us through all that than disappointed. We agreed to go hunting again Friday night.
Back earlier in the week, I had come down with a cold. By the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling pretty miserable. But now I was out with a vengeance to find something cuter, bigger, and cheaper than the house we’d lost. We checked out two in St Paul that didn’t have dining rooms and didn’t have much else to make up for it. Then we headed back to Minneapolis to look at four over there. They weren’t as far south, which means no airport noise to deal with, but I was more leery of the safety of the neighborhoods. The first one we saw there just kept coming back to me. It didn’t hurt that it was the cheapest by over 10K. It seemed like even the beautiful homes that had all the charm in the world didn’t hit me the same way the first Minneapolis house of the night did. By the time we got home, I was pretty sure I wanted to make an offer on that house. It had been on the market for nearly a month, so we didn’t feel as rushed as we had before. The idea that we wouldn’t have to repeat the fight of the previous week was very appealing to me. We told our agent we’d sleep on it.
Saturday we still weren’t positive, but we arranged to see it again at an open house the next day. That morning, my sister participated in a triathlon, and watching her and the other athletes was a nice break from house, house, house.
Sunday afternoon, we got to the open house a few minutes early. We waited in the car until their agent appeared. We also felt like we were spying on the current owners, watching them pack up for the afternoon. A family with three kids lives there now, and they were moving to somewhere with more space. My mom met us there—she had expressed more than a little trepidation at our buying a 98 year old fixer-upper in the city, and we wanted her to see how nice it was. That evening, after making a list of pros and cons, we told our agent that we wanted to make an offer on it. We then went to “Pirates of the Caribbean” and forgot about the whole thing. Very funny movie, if I’m not the last person on the continent to see it and you’re looking for a recommendation. I was glad that I only had to get up to pee once, although I did visit the bathroom immediately before and after. Stupid bladder.
Monday morning, our agent came bright and early. So early in fact that we’d overslept and I had to make a dash to the other bedroom to get dressed (our current bedroom is too small to fit both Dan’s and my dressers and our bed in it). We offered $7,500 under the asking price and were ready to be countered. Indeed, before lunch that day, we heard that they could lower the asking price $1,500, but that was it. We accepted.
Hurrah! We had a house! If only that was the end of the running around. That afternoon, I called a couple inspectors and chose the cheaper of the two who could come within our specified 72 hours. I started worrying about how to choose between mortgage guys, but didn’t make any decisions.
That morning, my cold had developed into a headache, and by late afternoon I was hurting badly enough that I called the nurseline. I must have sounded pretty pitiful because she scheduled me with a general practitioner the next morning. All I could think of was my cold that turned into a headache which turned out to be a sinus infection in Montreal. I had no desire to repeat that misery. I called Dan to get him up to speed on everything and started crying. Apparently, I’d reached my stress limit for the day. (Note—this was my third hormonal crying jag while pregnant. At least I know it’s normal.) After talking to him, I decided it was time to tell my boss about the baby. I was outside my building when I called, but I didn’t want to have to explain why I was such a mess when I went back in. I pulled myself together and asked my boss if I could talk to her privately (no real offices here—just half walls). I told her the news, and she was happy for me. I was worried that since she’s 7 or 8 years older than me, married without kids, she’d think I was crazy for getting pregnant now, but she was very nice. She said she wouldn’t tell anyone in the office until it was clear that I was talking about it. That was comforting, because I don’t feel ready to “come out” to my co-workers yet. I’m hoping to hold off until after Labor Day. She did mention a new position that I might be a candidate for, but it sounds like the job would be starting just as I go on maternity leave, so it might not work so well. I told her that I planned to take the 12 weeks leave given by FMLA and decide at that point what to do next.
So after a long Monday, the day finally came to an end.
Tuesday, my dad brought me to the doctor’s so Dan wouldn’t have to miss work. I hadn’t met the doc before, but I really liked her. She asked all sorts of questions and determined that my sinuses weren’t infected yet. She gave me all sorts of options to try, with various levels of safety. As it turned out, I went home and slept that night and Dan got the cold, and by the time I woke up Wednesday, I felt better enough that I didn’t have to use any of her remedies.
After the appointment, I went to work for an hour, then Dan picked me up for the house inspection. We spent an hour or so following the inspector around. He verified that the house really won’t fall down anytime soon, and gave us a bunch of renovation advice for the cosmetic things that could use some help. It seems as though everyone I talk to has experience updating old homes, which is good since the two of us are completely clueless, but fairly enthusiastic.
Wednesday, my first headache-less day in awhile, we met with Mr. Stocks to discuss our down payment and where exactly it would come from. Afterwards, Dan and I went out to lunch and got to eat together for once. I can’t remember the last time we ate lunch with each other on a weekday. It was really a nice break in the day. That afternoon, I tried calling Mr. Big Bank to see if I could finagle a good mortgage rate out of him. Not only was he not there, he was apparently at his other office, for which I didn’t have a phone number. Not the smartest way to keep customers. While searching online for his number, I found their rates for the day—there were about half a percent higher than what I’d seen elsewhere, so I decided it was time to forget about Mr. Big Bank. I called our other pre-approved broker and got locked in at a much better rate almost immediately. Ha! I had fun leaving a message for Mr. Big Bank saying that I hadn’t been able to get ahold of him, so we’d be taking our money elsewhere. Our lender said he’d take care of setting up any necessary appointments and all other details, so I was able to breathe easily again for the first time in weeks.
Thursday I called our insurance guy (apparently, there never is really an end to this) and had a nice chat. His wife is due in January and they’re moving soon too. This guy (he’s part of Farmer’s Insurance—I highly recommend them to all) helped my parents immediately when a tornado came through town in 1998 and caused $30,000 worth of damage to their house. Within weeks they had a new garage, basement carpeting, and windows when most of the neighbors still had tarps covering their roofs. I will never choose to take shortcuts with homeowner’s insurance after seeing what a difference it made for them to have things covered at replacement, not current value, cost. 20 year old carpet ain’t worth much, but it sure costs a lot to replace. This guy has also had my car insurance since I got my license and our renter’s insurance. When we got married and I left my parents’ policy, I called around and was told by other agents to keep this guy, he was offering such good rates. I wouldn’t have thought that having a $100 hail deductible would come in so handy, but I’ve used that many times already. Anyway, Mr. Farmers gave me a couple homeowners’ estimates and I happily accepted the more expensive one. We meet with him in a week to pay up.
On Friday, our agent called to say that the closing date might get moved from September 25th to August 29th. The sellers were willing to pay our September rent if we agreed. I thought that was fine, since we’ll wait a couple weeks to move in anyway, but apparently the mortgage guy kinda flipped. We still don’t know for sure which date it is, but since Aug. 29th is next Friday, that’s looking less likely by the hour.
That ends our house hunt saga. Soon, the renovation tales will begin, but I’m hoping there won’t be any more twists along our trail to home ownership. One of these days, a very large check should come in the mail. It will sit in my checking account until it clears and we immediately hand it over to the sellers. I think it’ll be fun for my account to grow by a factor of twenty, even for a few days.
So, you wanna know about the house that we’re now stuck with, for better or worse? It’s a 2-story, 2-bedroom frame house built in 1905. The first floor has a small kitchen (oh goody), a dining room, and living room. We’re planning to pull up the carpeting and linoleum on the first floor the instant we close, and revealing the maple floors underneath. The bedrooms and bathroom are upstairs. The bedrooms are bigger than most we saw—I think they’re 15’x12’ and 14’x10’. The ceilings slant on one side, but there’s still more than enough room for our bed, dressers, a crib, bookshelf, and maybe a desk in there. The second bedroom will hold plenty of room for baby stuff. Our plan is to stay for about five years and move when the baby I’m currently growing is in preschool and hopefully a baby #2 is an infant or toddler. The basement isn’t scary at all, which amazed me. I wouldn’t want to hang out there for hours, but it’s been recently painted, and we don’t have a child-eating giant furnace. The yard is better than most in the city, and I’m planning to plant bulbs this fall and start a real garden next year. There’s no garage, but there’s a big parking area so we can keep our car off the street. There’s a concrete slab there, waiting for a garage, if we decide to put one up. The house is two blocks from a big park, six blocks from the Mississippi (which is nice looking up here in the North!), and one block off a major bus route—which I need to get to work, since we’re a one-car household and I’m a big fan of transit. The neighborhood’s going through a big revitalization phase, which hopefully means we’ll get a lot of equity out of the place and the not-so-hot main road we’re just off of will be gaining more trustworthy establishments. I’ll be able to walk to a Dairy Queen, a library, and a coffee shop. We’re 10 minutes tops from the airport and the Mall of America. We’re 20 minutes by bus to both downtowns. This is going to be great.
Talk to Me:
Any house hunt horror stories? Now that I’m done, you can’t scary me!
Renovation tips—we might as well start now!
Next time, I’ll be talking about my newly rounded belly and other joys of the early second trimester.
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