originally posted february 12, 2005

Where Do We Go From Here?

The Next Home Search Begins

My lease runs out in the middle of this year. Time to deal with one of my big goals for 2005: finding a place of my own. It's amazing how tough this whole process really is.

Culture Shock All Over Again

So when I entered 2005, I knew two things: my lease will expire at the end of June, and that I've been spending way too much money on rent. Now my plan is to move to a place that I will eventually own in 15 or 30 years. I started my search near Carnegie Mellon in the neighborhoods of Shadyside and Squirrel Hill, then expanded my search to Greenfield, Friendship, Bloomfield, Regent Square, Point Breeze, the South Side, and any other area that people have suggested.

So buying a home is a very common thing, apparently. Everyone I've talked to has been overjoyed to hear that I'm buying a home. Starting immediately when I got pre-approved for my mortgage, people have treated my decision to buy a home as comparable to, say, getting married or having a chlid. By contrast, had I told someone that I just bought a new car or laptop, they'd say "what kind?" and I'd tell them, then the conversation would be over. When I say "I'm looking for a home," the immediate response is "Oh, what area?" and that in turn is followed by a long conversation.

I'd like to see figures to know for sure, but I have a suspicion that well over 50% of real estate agents are women. Real estate is a profession that someone can do in their spare time, so housewives and mothers can fit it into any schedule. After a particularly tough first outing, I was told by my agent, "Don't worry. You'll find a home that's just right for you one of these days." I've been told a very similar line countless times by women about women.

The 100 Dos and 106 Don'ts of Home Buying

As with any process, many experts have popped up to offer their advice. Everyone has their own personal tips and tricks for home buying. Everyone knows a secret area of the city, a secret bargaining tip, or a particular agent who's "the best."

So I bought two books from Amazon to help me with the home buying process: 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask and the 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them). So right off the bat, I have 206 points to consider about every home. Furthermore, several of the mistakes boil down to "believing some other theory that I don't like," so I get to deal with some more subjective issues as well. For example, I am not supposed to believe that home prices have peaked (analysts have been saying that since the '50s) but 106 Common Mistakes author Gary Eldred claims that stock prices have peaked. Gary also gives seminars that persuade renters to buy something already, so his book is packed with charts and graphs that show me just how stupid I am for continuing to rent for the time being.

Why Every Home in Pittsburgh Sucks

After looking at my first round of homes, I immediately became frustrated: every home I saw had some sort of crippling defect. Some had substantial water damage, some had uneven floors, and others had paneling that serves (as I'm led to believe) solely to mask any defects in the basement. Whatever my buyer's agent doesn't find will only be discovered by a home inspector later in the buying process, Whatever my buyer's agent doesn't find will only be discovered by a home inspector later in the buying process. There could be a boiler that's about to go, an air compressor so filthy it begs to be replaced, a roof that's been redone in a substandard way, or any number of problems that could end up costing me hundreds if not thousands of dollars in the first few years of home ownership.

All these problems waiting to happen really make me appreciate living in an apartment, which leads me to believe that I'd be happier living in a condominium or co-op instead of an entire house. The largest properties I've seen and liked so far have been townhouses or very small single-family homes. In Pittsburgh it's surprisingly easy for me to find a four- or even five-bedroom home for $150,000, but I cringe at the thought of maintaining such a property. The utility bills, the maintenance obligations, and the property taxes would kill me before I found so many tenants.

When Responsibility is a Bonus Feature

When I lived with my parents, I avoided doing housework for 18 years. Why should I look forward to it now as a prospective homeowner?

It's wintertime in Pittsburgh, and despite the recent warm weather, Pittsburgh winters are known for being brutal. The rapid freezes and thaws cause concrete and pipes to break apart. Snow and ice make walkways very treacherous, and they can take a lot of time for one person to clear. Now I understand why it's so helpful to have extra people around to help with housework, but housework's not for me. One of the townhouses I looked at is in the borough of Edgewood where for just $40/month a local community worker will take care of exterior maintenance. That place made my short list.

So I'll continue to look all around. I'll continue to collect advice from everyone about everywhere. And sometime later this year, I will indeed have a place of my own. Probably.

Back to February 2005, or to the year 2005.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.