Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Misadventures in Real Estate



So yeah...remember that great condo that we found that was big, cheap, and near the metro? Remember how we thought it was too good to be true? Turns out - it was! Late on Monday night, Nicholas was reviewing the condo docs when he came to their pet policy, which pretty clearly prohibits dogs. As many of you know, we in fact have a dog and while sometimes she barks at nothing in the middle of the night and eats entire bags of semisweet chocolate chips we plan on keeping her around for awhile.

Need less to say, we are no longer buying that condo. I have to say it was pretty devastating. I had already decorated the entire thing in my head and even bought some furniture. Nicholas was looking forward to his 5 minute walk to work. Having it all jerked out from underneath us as we were approaching the finish line was quite a blow. However, it could have been much much worse. Our contract had a provision that allows us to pull out for any reason during the three days we review the condo docs so we won't lose any money. More importantly, we have the most amazing landlord in the entire world who assures us we can stay as long as we want, renting week to week, despite the fact he had other tenants lined up. So we won't end up on the street which is good.

We are now back to square one and looking at apartments again. It didn't take us very long to find this one - so I keep telling myself another perfect one (maybe even better!) is out there. So send us good real estate thoughts!

Sunday, June 04, 2006

So we're buying a condo


New Condo
Originally uploaded by SarahorNicholas.
Sarah and I finally got up the courage to invest in the crazy DC real esate market and we think we did pretty well. We close on a one bedroom/one bath condo on June 27th. The condo is an end unit and is 724 sq. ft., which is actually a nice size based on what we've seen at the price. Maggie will actually get to see the sun during the day and I get a bigger (though slightly dated) kitchen. There are a couple of pictures on flickr for those interested

Unfortunately, we no longer have an extra bedroom, which means that the next sibling that is displaced by a natural disaster may not be able to live with us, but we plan on having some way to accomodate people who come into town for a few days (we're looking at futons, etc.). IKEA, West Elm, and Target are fast becoming our most-visited websites. We plan on moving in at the beginning of July, about 5 days after we come home from Hawaii (we're really great planners that way). Get excited!!!