We’re on the home stretch, everybody. The house will be going on the market in early May. Originally we were going to list it in April, but with the World Cup coming to Kansas City, we will find ourselves out of housing options if our house sells before we can find one to move into. Every available Airbnb, hotel room, finished basement and spare bedroom are being rented to soccer fans for exorbitant prices!
We need a needle in a haystack
There is a very real chance that our house will sell before we find something new. We need a house that fits some very particular parameters:
*Affordable (although we’ve increased our price point recently after hitting some open houses recently) – we don’t want to have a mortgage anymore
*A good neighborhood (so the kid and roommate will be safe when we are gone)
*A finished basement with a full bath (or the ability to add one and still stay in our budget)
*A second kitchenette in the basement (or. more likely, the ability to add one and still stay in our budget)
These last two are the issue. Ironically, our current house has everything on the list, except for the no mortgage part.
We’ve started looking early
Because what we want is unique, we’ve started looking at houses early. We’re on Redfin daily, looking at what is new and searching for the perfect keywords that will tell us if the house fits our needs (we haven’t yet found the perfect search terms. We have to zoom in on basement pictures and read descriptions to see if they have what we need. It’s slow going.
We have found a few promising options. We have several lists started on Redfin to sort houses that may be options.
We realized after this weekend, that we also need a list for houses that will not work – hence the “No thanks” list. After a while, all the houses start top blend together and we found ourselves looking at the same houses over and over again, even after we had eliminated them.
It’s time to call in the professionals
Work is busy for both of us right now and only going to get busier, so we’re calling in our favorite real estate agent to start combing through the haystacks for us. She’ll know how to find houses that fit our needs and also know the right timing for putting our house on the market.
If you have any house hunting tips, we’re all ears!
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