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Broke Wife, Big City
Let the hunt
begin
By Aprill Brandon
Now that I’m in my mid-30’s, I like to think I have a good handle on my
strengths and weaknesses. For example...
Strengths:
Writing good-ish.
Keeping my children
alive.
Playing beer pong.
Weaknesses:
Pronouncing the
names of fancy wines
Eating only one
doughnut.
Buying a home.
It’s that last one that I’m now having to confront (she types while
dipping her third doughnut into a glass of unpronounceable fancy wine).
See, I am a lifelong renter. I’ve lived in three states, moved into six
different places, and throughout it all I’ve managed to dodge this
Great American Milestone.
On purpose.
In fact, very few things in this world make me more exhausted than even
the mere thought of buying a house. It’s just so involved. So
complicated. So very, very boring. The whole home owner rigmarole
doesn’t interest me in the least. I’m horrible at interior decorating
(every room should just be filled with overloaded bookshelves). I’ve
never gardened (my windowsill basil plant left a suicide note). And
I’ve survived quite well thus far not knowing what any tool besides a
hammer is.
If it were up to me, I’d just move into an abandoned library and leave
it as is. Each kid would get their own shelf to sleep in and I’d build
us a couch out of Stephen King paperbacks.
Speaking of kids, I made two of them. I made HUMANS. From SCRATCH. And
it was still less painful and panic-inducing to me than buying a house
is.
Because for all the incomprehensible things my kids do, they have never
asked me for a $43,000 down payment. Or asked me to figure out what the
hell an escrow is (not a bird, in case you were wondering, like I was).
I mean, it’s a house. Shelter. One of humanities basic needs. We used
to just murder a bunch of trees and stick ‘em on top of each other and
be done with it.
But trying to procure one now (especially when you live on a budget
that includes arguments over how many paper towels someone just wasted
because paper towels ain’t cheap, RYAN) is completely overwhelming.
The whole process needs to be vastly simplified. Here’s how it should
go, in my opinion.
See a house.
Tell whoever I see first at the bank, hey, I would like that house.
Pay us this reasonable amount every month for 30 years, random bank
clerk responds.
OK, great. Where do I sign?
Here.
Move in.
BOOM. Done.
But no. We need a real estate agent and an appraiser and a bank loan
officer and a mortgage lender and a mortgage broker and a home
inspector and an insurance agent and then there is the seller and the
seller’s agent and the title company and zzzzzzzzzz…
And that’s not counting all the research we have to do first into the
neighborhood and the crime rate and the school district. Followed by
all the competing bids we’ll have to make against all the other parents
who also researched that same good neighborhood with the low crime rate
and the decent school district.
Oh, that we could just continue renting forever. Or start squatting in
an abandoned library.
But, sigh, the kids. Our
kids. They deserve roots. They deserve a community and a good school
they don’t have to leave because our rent skyrocketed and we had no
control over it. They deserve a place to permanently call home.
I want to give them these things. I really do. I just don’t know why I
have to go through 24 people sporting garish blazers first (at least
three of whom will be named Sharon) in order to make that happen.
I love where we live now. But short of me marrying our landlord, which
my husband for some reason is vehemently opposed to, there is no
guarantee we’ll be able to stay indefinitely.
So, as they say, let the house hunting begi...zzzzzzzzzzzz
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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