bold.

I did not mean to buy the first house I saw. I will admit to a inner desire for more spontanaeity in myself. I envy people who successfully fly through life never thinking more than a few hours ahead. Those people seem very happy and carefree. But when I want that in myself, that means that I want to be able drop everything and go to the beach for a day. I want to be spontaneous while still keeping a good credit score.

I decided to buy a house on Thanksgiving of last year. Then I postponed doing anything about it until after the holidays so that I could devote my full attention to the process. When the new year came around, I started looking at realty web sites. I even went through a copy of The Real Estate Book, something I might have done once when I was 17 and really bored. I made an inquiry about one promising looking house, but then found out that it was on a teeny lot and had window unit air conditioning. I looked at lots and lots of web listings and realized that while I could never get tired of ranch dressing, the same did not apply for ranch style homes.

I had a vague idea of what I wanted. Something a little older sitting on a half-acre or more. Reasonably close to Raleigh, though I would be willing to trade convenience for more land. A neighborhood that wasn't too manicured so I didn't feel too suburban. A house that didn't look too much like its neighbors.

I struggled with the purpose of my buying a house. This would be my first home, so it didn't have to be perfect. I found myself being attracted to the listings that were sitting on 10 acres out in the boonies. One of them had a chicken coop, and the offer of a couple of starter chickens - CHICKENS! It also had an hour commute to my office. Too bad I couldn't get the chickens to fly me to work. At some point, I want to move back to the boonies. But it didn't have to be with this house.

Once I'd made that concession, I started wondering how much of my ideal home I should have to sacrifice. This was just a temporary home, even if temporary meant twenty years. It was no problem finding a home on a reasonable lot. Nor was it a problem to find a home that was cut from a different mold or a home that had a short commute or one within sight of a tree. It was finding all of these things in one home that was the problem. If I could find a house with 75% of what I wanted, would that be enough? What about 50%?

That's what I thought about while I looked at listings and repeatedly ruled out a house for some reason or another. I marked a couple, but without much enthusiasm. Looking back at the same homes I'd bookmarked earlier, I would wonder what had appealed to me about them. There was exactly one that really looked promising. I didn't figure anything would come of it, but I scheduled an appointment to view the house, thinking that I might as well start looking at places in person instead of on the internet.

I don't know how the house felt about me after that first visit, but I was pretty sure I was in love with it. This house was the building equivalent of a laid-back skinny musician who grew up in the country and liked puns. I loved the house, I loved the neighborhood. Ten minutes from work, the view from the front porch looked like a quiet mountain neighborhood. There was a lake and so many trees you can't see the actual house from satellite pictures. Inside was a big stone wood-burning fireplace, with pine floors and skylights all over the place. The kitchen was big and open. It wasn't perfect, but as a temporary house, it was wonderful.

The house had character. I know that's a real estate word for weird, but to me it's a necessity. I want to live in a place with personality. All houses have personalities, I suppose, but some of them are really boring. Most people don't care about that sort of thing, even people who themselves are not boring. That's fine for them, and I'm glad those people are out there to buy up the houses that I don't want. It takes all kinds, right?

Josh was very ho-hum about the wonderful, glorious house. He liked the floors and the fireplace, but thought it was too far away from downtown and too expensive. I thought he was a sour puss.

I left that house feeling very sad. Here was this wonderful house, and someone else was going to buy it before I felt comfortable making an offer. I'd been looking at online listings for two weeks, and this had been my first viewing. I couldn't just buy the first house I saw. That was the kind of thing that a person with a bad credit score would do. I felt certain that someone else would buy it soon, and I thought about how happy they would be there.

During the next week, I continued to look at listings, but now they were all tainted. I could barely even bring myself to consider a ranch home at this point. The realtor sent me some more listings and I sent some more back, and we agreed to go on a general house-viewing tour the next Sunday. The houses she sent me were very nice, and I managed to get myself excited about some of the bells and whistles. One had a finished basement, another a dual HVAC system. As the week wore on, I managed to accept that I would not be getting the other house and started turning my attention to appreciating these new houses up for my inspection.

The first house was very nice. And so was the second one. As was the third one and the fourth one and so on and so on. Each time I would walk around the house, pointing out things that I liked (brick fireplaces, really luxurious thick carpeting, bathroom tiling) and things that impressed me less (shower stalls in the master bath - are you freaking kidding me?, cave-like kitchens, so much hideous wallpaper). And then I would get to the end of the tour and shrug. It was fine. If I visited someone living there, I would be sure and tell them how much I liked the fireplace, and I would absolutely mean it. They were all nice houses...for other people. After two of these reactions, my mother, who was along for the ride that day, remarked that I was an "individual." That's a non-realtor way of saying weird.

My realtor, sensing that I was never to be satisfied, remarked that a lot of a house's feel came from the furnishings. I know this is true, because I live in a pretty beige apartment. Between the mirror shaped like a ship's helm and the globe of the moon, I manage to weird it up a bit. But I hate to do all the work. The house should at least meet me halfway.

After the fourth house, I asked if it would be too much trouble to swing by the house I'd seen the week before so that Mama could see it. I'm not sure what I was thinking here. I would not have admitted to myself that I still had hope of getting that house. It seemed very much out of the question. But I must have had that small hope glimmering inside me. Had I been truly resigned to the fate of someone else living there, I would not have asked to go.

This time, I gave the tour. I pointed out all the wonderful characteristics of this house to Mama, pointing out the real hardwood floors, the skylights (I hadn't noticed the one in the bathroom before - awesome), the view, where I could put my new freezer. I'm sure the realtor was off snickering somewhere.

We saw one more house after that. It was also a contemporary style, though most of its character came from the furnishings. These people had fantastic taste. Of the new houses I had seen, this one was promising. I could see myself here. I'd want to tear down the wall separating the kitchen and the dining room at some point and the wallpaper would have to go, but this house had potential. I could tell that it had personality, but that maybe it was a little shy and needed a confidence boost. At the same time, it sort of felt like an impersonator of the first house. An impersonator that was on a smaller lot, had fewer trees, and was right next to a busy road. And cost $25,000 more.

I got home from the excursion feeling really bummed. We had seen lovely houses of different styles in nice neighborhoods and nothing had spoken to me. My realtor was perfectly willing to keep going at it, pulling listings and visiting them, but I had my doubts that it would be much different from today. The houses we'd viewed today only served to remind me how much more I liked the first one. If only I could just buy that one.

Josh and I discussed the day's house-hunting. He had done a complete one-eighty on his opinion of the first house. He was downright enthusiastic about it. Seeing all the other ones convinced him that it was really a fantastic and unusual house...and cheaper, too. Maybe I should have made him look at all the listings of ranch homes beforehand. While we were talking about it, I realized that I could very easily regret not buying that house. I could look for months until I ended up settling for something that was less than what I wanted. I could also find something equally awesome later, when I felt more ready. But I couldn't see myself regretting jumping on this house while I could (unless a dinosaur stepped on it later or something, and I could just get insurance for that).

So why didn't I just buy it? It was exactly what I wanted, in my price range, and likely to go up in value. The only thing keeping me back was the fact that I'd been looking at houses for all of two weeks and had seen in person a total of six. It seemed hasty. But maybe it wasn't hasty at all - it was bold!

So that's how, ten days after viewing the first house in my first foray into home ownership, I signed a contract saying that I would buy it. It was scary, but even after I signed the paper and wrote a check for $1000 earnest money, I felt good about the decision. I felt bold.