For Sale

So we are in the market for a home to call our own. Although we love our rental house, the time has come to stop sharing a closet.

After almost five months of active searching we have had no luck. I have put on my sea bands for countless Sundays spent in the car with our real estate agent. My Man and I have also taken matters into our own hands and spent hours on zillow.com.

We continue to cruise the desirable neighborhoods taking flyers and playing the “guess how much it’s listed for” game. A game that occasionally ends in eye rolling, cursing the homeowner, and accusing them of smoking the crack pipe while overpricing their home. Subsequent dialogue…

Me: “$CrazyAmountofDollar$? For that piece?”

Him: Does it come with a yacht?”

Me: “Does it come with a full-time employee?”

Him: “Oh I know, it comes with a beach house.”

etc.

At this point in the program, I want to politely remind our nation (and particularly home sellers in Atlanta) that WE ARE IN A RECESSION. Price your houses accordingly. Although low-interest rates and excess inventory might make it a buyers market, home prices still seem pretty dang inflated. Unfortunately, the first-time homebuyer’s dollar still doesn’t go too far in this fine city.

My Oneandonly and I have seen dozens of homes in the high and low end of our price range. After all of this searching, we haven’t found a house but we have been able to nail down our list of must and must not haves. Our perfect house will be something like this:

Deal makers:

• an open floor plan where the kitchen flows into the living room
• a yard for a future (hopefully non-shedding) dog
• a quiet street in a walkable neighborhood
• at least 3 bedrooms (so yall can come visit)
• a value. a deal. a big bang for the hard-earned buck.

Deal breakers:

• located on a flood plain
• on a busy street with double yellow lines
• choppy floor plan
• an on-site seller’s agent who talks to My Man throughout the entire home tour, and only talks to me when pointing out the features of the laundry room
• a master bathroom that makes me feel like I would get an STD from taking a bath in the black marble tub (I’m talking to you, house on Martin Court)
• the lot backs up to an interstate or is in hearing distance from one
• mold (You watched the Bachelorette, you know what I’m talking about. Sweet Kirk might have made it to the top three if it hadn’t been for The Mold)
• really low ceilings

Is it possible to have it all? Will we find that first house dream house in the price range? Hopefully.

And when/if we do, Internet, you will be the first to know. I guarantee a slew of before and after pics and I will need your assistance in a tireless letter writing campaign to HGTV-in hopes of getting a divine re-design of my own from one of my select on-air favorites.

In the meantime, we have received 782 pages of reading material from the mother-in-law on the topic. I better hop to it.