A Homeowner?

Yes, I did that. Last March I joined the ranks of the "ownership society". I was highly dubious (and ambivalent) about the whole thing, but eventually I found something too good to pass up. Prior to my full time employment at UP (more on that in a future post) I was living in SE Portland and working variously around town. The commute from my apartment (which was in a great neighborhood not far from anything with bars/restaurants/coffeeshops all around) to UP was a pain at times (being mostly Interstate). Many of my graduate level classes run 4-5:30, and getting home/eating/and getting back to campus for evening rehearsals wasn't worth the effort (leading to eating 2 meals a day in my office at times).

So, the hunt began. I've never bought into the whole "renting is throwing away money" BS (because it takes fairly complicated and complex math to make an apples to apples comparison of renting and investing in other things v. owning property), so I wasn't (unlike many) determined to own a home. In fact, renting is lovely in many ways (no lawn care, no major expenses, no long term geographical commitments). But, there are owning advantages too, so I started looking.

Luckily, I had a great agent, Leonie North (wonderful, wonderful human being...blessed with great patience). I looked at places that were not near anything at all (and I am a huge proponent of living withing walking/biking distance of things) and places in good locations that were the same size as my apartment but would cost me 2x (or more) in a mortgage payment per month (Portland was in the midst of a condo-conversion boom at the time). Leonie took my reactions in stride.

Then the place I'm in came up. 1200 sq feet (more than twice my apartment), little less than 2 miles from campus (bikable even when the weather sucks), 2 BR (so I can put my "office" in a separate space from occupying my living room and kitchen as previous). All in all a nice place (porch in front, deck, cement pad for car, and big shed--nice for the bike--in back). And the price was ok. It'd been on the market for almost a year, and I was still ambivalent about it (the location isn't tremendous...not much walkable from the place), so we decided to put in a lowball bid and see what they countered with. And then they accepted the bid (turns out they were very motivated to sell quickly). Next thing I knew I owned a damn house.

All in all it was a good decision. I got a really good price on it, and a good mortgage. My commute to campus is easy (and with gas over $4 a gallon, biking is almost lucrative). A couple of days ago I did a big loop on my bike: campus to take care of some paperwork, then to the coffeeshop I like in the neighborhood to the south for a while, then to the grocery store I like, and back home. So while I can't walk to stuff like I'd like to, I can certainly get all I need by bike. I do have to take the car (at least until I get a better bike) when going to downtown or SE Portland. It's nice having the space too. On the other hand, I know have a yard (albeit small) that I need to care for. Not doing a great job of that. And some things I need to fix (or pay to have fixed).

So, I own a home. Who'd've thunk it?