The Search Begins

DH already had a search set up on Redfin.com so he added my email address to it and the search began.  We had the list of needs and wishes as well as the top price we were willing to pay.  If the interest rates went down or up, the price cap would change.

It turned out that our price range really seemed to buy our current house with one step up.  The house we owned was 1206 sq ft and our property was 6600 sq ft with a deeded right of way through the front property.  The foundation was field stone, we had a shed and 3 bedrooms.  Our street was fairly quiet most of the time.  Our house was listed for $250k.  When we started searching, looking for a house up to $350k, we found houses barely a step above ours.  There may have been more land - .25-.5 acres.  There may have been a bigger house, 1800 sq ft but less than .25 acres.  We may have gotten both, there was a house that had 2000 sq ft and .5 acres but it was on a very busy street and it was actually listed for $400k but by then we were stretching the cap.  I mentioned the field stone foundation because it was important to get a pour concrete foundation for us.  This basically meant we were looking for a house built in 1940's or after.  This actually limited us more than I first realized.  There a lot of old homes in Boston's North Shore.

We realized we did not want to move and find that we still had many of the same restrictions we had in our current house.  So our maximum creeped up.  At least the interest rates dropped, making the increase a little less painful.

We went to open houses, arranged private showings and did a lot of research online.  Before going, we would look things up on the town property assessment data.  It usually included permits taken out and other building changes.  We might even look up the deed info ahead, if we had time, to see if there were any easements on the property. 

Finally we found a house we liked and made an offer.  Then had the inspection.  Then started some more research because we noticed some Conservation Commission notices posted on the property line.  Let's just say we learned a few new places to call for researching as well as the amount of conservation work we'd have to do to catch up on what the last people didn't do, was a bit overwhelming.

After that, if we really liked a house once we'd seen it, enough to put an offer in on it, there was even more research.  Depending on the amount of information available on line, we did some online, some on the phone and some in person.  We went to town halls and called a variety of town offices. 

We talked to the Conservation Commission.  We would ask if there was any wetlands on the property, what the wetlands buffer was in their town and if there was anything else we should know.  Sometimes going in person, so you can see specific maps was helpful.  When there were wetlands or wetlands buffer on the property we check on the rules about building fences, sheds, playhouses, as well as what plants we could plant, trees we could cut down and if we could put a garden in without permission.

We spoke with the department of public works, especially when they had an easement on the property for the water drainage on the corner.  Can you plant a garden on top of the easement?  Is there anything I need to know for the streets in the area or any projects in the area?

We spoke with the board of health, just asking, "Is there anything we need to know about this property?"

We spoke to a lot of people, searched online and felt that we were doing our Due Diligence which meant the list was getting very tight.  We had to increase our search area.

Selling, Buying and Moving

Selling a house is difficult.  Buying a house can be disappointing.  Moving is exhausting.  That's my opinion.

We "had it easy" selling our home and it was still difficult.  Someone came to us when our house was on "Make Me Move" on zillow.com.  So after putting it on the market three times over 4 years we had given up.  We had taken down all our pictures, removed furniture, tried to declutter (I am not good at that) and moved a large amount of clutter to storage.  Each time we did this, I was pregnant.  Each time DH had done more improvements.  Each time we did not sell and there was a lot of disappointment with that since no one even made an offer after all the work we had put into the house and each showing.  After the third child we left the house on zillow.com's "Make Me Move" and only talked about putting it back on the market. 

This February we received a call from a real estate agent.  She said, "I have a client that wants to buy your house."  I was stunned. Each previous call from an agent went  no where so after a quick recovery I refered her to my DH and figured we'd never hear any more about it.  After DH spoke with the agent we had about 10 days to pull together the house for a showing.  No time to move everything out, no time to hide anything.  These poor people were going to see us in our fully cluttered glory!

Our showing was fast.  We didn't have an agent so I stayed and DH took the kids out.  He was barely out before I called him back.  That was a Saturday afternoon.  Then we waited.  Until Thursday when we received an offer.  I was so excited I almost fell over.  After a weekend of negotions we came to an agreement by Monday.  We had found a great real estate lawyer so we figured we were set.  Later we realized we could have used an agent.  But that's a whole other story.

So now we had to find a house.  Our contract gave us until April 15th with a contigency of May 31st.