Where to live?

As many of you know, I have begun my search for a house to buy.  Yes buy.  As in own.  As in mine.  As in pay a whole lot of money for then freak out about.  Confession: it wasn't my idea.  If you had asked me 6 months ago about buying a house I would have laughed.  Me?  Buy a house?  Laughable.  Insane.  Crazy talk.  I would have told you that is just one of my mother's crazy projects she gets into.

And at first, that's all it was.  I begrudgingly gave in to go see a couple of houses with my mom.  "I'll just go look," I thought.  "There' no harm in that."  I should have remembered how I came to acquire Whitman.  There is no such thing as "just looking".  Gradually I began to see the possibility there.  I could own a house for less than I pay renting.  Why throw my money into someone else's pocket when I could be putting it toward my own house?  So when renting stopped making sense I found myself seriously looking for a house.

Well it has all snowballed into quite a project.  When my realtor, Javier, got involved the shit got real.  Let me tell you, he's a God-send.  I would have probably gone bat-shit crazy way before this if not for Javier.  He's really helped out.  I'm sure is thinking "Jesus woman just pick one!" in his head, but he's been very nice about it.  I figure if you're picky about one thing in life, it should be the house you buy.  I just hope I find one that fits me before Javier kills me in my sleep.

So what am I looking for?  I'm not sure.  Here are a few things I pulled out of the bag:

• Big backyard: A must have when you have two large dogs.
• Bedrooms bigger than a postage stamp: Part of being an adult in my head is that I don't have to sleep on a twin bed anymore.  Maybe having room to walk around on the floor around my bed would be nice too.
• Avoid suburbia: I hate the neighborhoods where your square house is just like your neighbor's house and your square yard is just like your neighbor's yard.  There is no soul in that kind of living.  So all neighborhoods like the ones out on Powers where it is "house house house househousehousehouse..." are out.
• It can't be way out in the boonies:  I'd like to be able to get to town/work with no longer than a 15 minute drive.  Fountain is out.
• West over East: I'm a westside girl.  What can I say?
• A house with a little character never hurt anyone:  I hate the houses that are just so boring you can barely walk through without going into a coma.  I want a house with a little heart and individuality.
• Not falling down: Sure that's always a good rule.  But what I mean is I don't want to buy a house that I am then going to have to strip down and redo everything.  Replacing things here and there, fine.  A complete rehaul?  Not really no.  I am just not that handy and not that into remodeling.
• Safe area: I shouldn't have to say I don't want to live in an area of town that I'd just scurry into my house,  throw the 12 deadbolts and never leave.  I want to be safe.

That being said, I've found three houses I could see myself in.  The first was a little house on Lark St.  I would have needed to do some work to it but it was cute, had a little character and had a great big yard for the dogs.  I made a low offer on it just to see and passed up on the counter offer.  Then there was the house on Polk St.  Across from a part and very cute.  The downstairs needed to be remodeled and the previous owners had dug a huge hole in the backyard because... well they wanted a giant sink back there.  That one would have been a lot of work but I was charmed by it.  We made an offer but they wanted us to come up more.  Then we were about to make a second offer when I got approved the the better loan but then it went under contract.  Someone is paying way too much for that house let me tell you.

Now we are in the negotiation stages of another house.  This one is closer to downtown, which I love.  It's the biggest that I've looked at and move in ready. 

The foundation was a little off but nothing you wouldn't expect with a 100 year old house.  We made an offer and they counter offered.  While I was deciding on that my dad had one of his friends inspect the roof and found out the roof was uninsurable.  So I was not going under contract with a roof that would cost me an arm and a leg to fix.  I counter offered their counter offer that they fix the roof.  I'm waiting to hear on that.  I really hope they go for it but something tells me they could find a buyer for that house that doesn't look at the roof first (don't know who would be that stupid but I guess those people are out there).  I'm having a hard time with that because the house is perfect.  As soon as I walked in I just fell in love with it and said, "Yes, make an offer."  It gave me that excited twitter.  I'll be really sad if it doesn't go through but I am trying to prepare myself for that.

*sigh*

The whole thing is getting old though.  I'm really just ready to find a house and be done with it.  My lease is up at the end of the month and I had hoped that we could either extend that or at least know what house I was going to before I was homeless.  Okay not homeless, I can move in with my parents, brother or sister.  Brother most likely.  Still, I'm used to having my own space now.  I so don't want to live with my parents.  And my sister, God love her, I don't think their house has enough room for me and my kiddos.  So brother it is.  This process has been taking up so much of my time and energy that I haven't been able to focus on much else.  It is one of those take-over-your-life-kind-of-projects.

I just want a house though!  Is that too much to ask!?  I don't like to have everything up in the air so much.  Still, it has to work itself out sometime.  I'll find a house somewhere.  I swear to gosh!