Discussing purchasing a home with someone older and more experienced can be more stressful than helpful. For example, a long-time client and friend of ours who is quite a bit older than us, owns 6 or 7 homes, most of which are rentals. He was over the other day asking us how our search was going and when we were moving. Well, of course we told him we were still preparing, by saving our 20% down payment (or at least as close as we could get to that goal) and weren’t ready yet to seriously begin looking. He told us to get going! What were we waiting for? His decision to our scenario: we were scared.

Scaredy Cats!

Well, of course we’re scared! It’s the largest purchase we’ll ever make. For the first time in our lives we have a substantial savings account and are contemplating handing it over to a bank in lieu of a small, fixer-upper, that will probably be in a so-so neighborhood.

He did have some good advice, though. One home in our neighborhood that we biked past the other day, looked promising. Not too much of a fixer upper, on a large corner lot on an alley (we actually live on an alley now and like it), on a newly repaved road. This particular home has been listed and delisted 3 times in the last 2 weeks on RedFin and we now have a clue as to why. This house has a small guesthouse that has been converted from a garage. Apparently, you’re not supposed to have a small guesthouse with a kitchen or shower because of zoning laws. There is also a problem of no carport, or something to this effect. This means there are permit problems with this property. That explains the listing/delisting issue. His solution, you can still put in an offer and fix the problem yourself, take out the shower and kitchen in the guest unit and build a carport, all with appropriate permits, of course.

At least this means the property may still be available a few months from now when we are actually ready to take the plunge.