Well, Our OTHER House

Lisa and I own two houses. Yes, we're once of those enviable couples who can now honestly say, "Our house -- well, our OTHER house." Unfortunately, we can't afford both these houses, which makes this situation less than ideal.

To recap: we put our NoDa house (where we've lived since 2001) on the market last weekend. It's an awesome house and we love everything about it except for the size. Rather than go through an expansion, we started looking around Plaza Midwood, and just yesterday found The House. It's pretty much a perfect move for us -- a completely renovated but still classic-feeling bungalow on one of the great streets in the neighborhood. (All the same reasons we ended up in the current house.) In fact, it was so right that we were signing papers an hour after seeing it.

(Side note: if you're looking for an edge when competing for a house, have your agent write a glowing note about you. Apparently, they work.)

On the downside, the NoDa bungalow sits without an offer, and time is ticking. One buyer came close, but ended up picking a similar house that cost $40,000 less.

Now, this isn't the first Plaza Midwood house that we bid on. At long last, here's the story of the house that we backed away from last Friday. I was in the middle of those non-stop work weeks, and Lisa had found and fallen for a house. I had (a) seen it online, (b) heard raves about it and (c) seen the exterior. What I hadn't done was (d) see the inside of the house itself. Still, I wasn't too worried because of (a), (b) and (c). So there we were: the final bid is in, it's been accepted, and I'm finally making time for a walk-through.

As I walked through this house that I'd already committed to buy, I was having a terrible feeling in my stomach. Nothing about the place felt right, and yet I kept trying to convince myself I was hallucinating, that soon I would "get" this house. But the more I saw, the more it felt wrong: it just wasn't my kind of house. But how do I say any of this given that we've (literally) signed off, and given that Lisa really likes this house?

I took a break from the tour (by this time, Lisa and our agent knew something was wrong) and I sat with Sophie on the front porch. I figured I just needed to get outside and re-evaluate. Remember that by this time the house is more or less a done deal, and getting out would be like calling off a wedding as the guests are filing in the church. So I sat there with Sophie on the front porch, and sure enough I started good thoughts. The porch felt comfortable and the street was gorgeous. I could see the neighbors out and about. Ah yes -- this was just a small bout of buyer's remorse.

And that's when I noticed the traffic. Not just cars passing by, but stop-and-go revving as people hit the stop sign just a few feet from the house. I watched (and heard and felt) car after car zoom away from our corner, and suddenly realized we were on a major pass-through. It didn't help when our agent tried to convince me that the traffic was no worse than our current street, which was patently false. The street that our NoDa house sits on is surprisingly calm -- probably 1/10th the traffic of the new house, and the difference was shocking.

Flash forward two hours, and we're on the phone telling our broker to send home the guests and cancel the invitations because the wedding is off. She makes up a great story about not securing financing or something, and the deal is suddenly off. I'm loving Lisa for putting up with my strange misgivings, and she's loving me for being honest with her about them. The only ones not feeling the love are the seller and the agents who just got jerked around pretty good because I couldn't pull myself away from work long enough to take a tour.