All about my new house

Buying a house in 2024

Last month, after ten months of house hunting, I finally closed on my new house. It feels surreal because this journey was not for the weak.

I started looking last August. I aggressively looked at house after house, putting in at least a half dozen offers, all over asking, only to be beat out by cash offers or offers way, way over asking.

I figured maybe I needed a new strategy. Let me try some woo woo shit, I thought. Maybe I just need to get clear on what exactly I want.

So I went on Pinterest, and made a little secret board, trying to manifest the house. I wanted a single family standalone home. I specifically wanted a single family standalone because condos come with so many rules and HOA fees and I wanted a private little yard for my (eventual) dog and (eventual) little garden. I envisioned something small with a small yard so I could maintain it myself, and something ideally in a walkable area because of the aforementioned eventual beast I want to get.

Once I got clear on what I wanted, I found the most perfect house, pictured above. A little 1920s gem of a place with an English garden in the back. It was so, so cute. They invited letters, so I got to work. I wrote the most lovely heartfelt letter and I put an offer in about 30k over asking…. and lost. I was the second highest offer and of course they went with the higher offer.

Discouraged, I paused the hunt between Thanksgiving and the New Year. The inventory was already so low, and I figured it might be best to wait for the spring market.

When January rolled around, I started the hunt again. By this time, I imagine my realtor was getting annoyed with me, although she swore she wasn’t, but I noticed her response times started to to lag, and the conversations started to be more one sided. On one particular day, I sent her three houses I wanted to see, and I didn’t hear back from her. Four hours later, I texted again, but no response.

A client of mine was also an agent, and since I hadn’t signed anything with agent number one, my client offered to take me to see the houses. Within fifteen minutes of her leaving my studio, she said house number 1 was already gone, despite it being on the market for less than 24 hours. House number 2 was also already sold, and the only one we could see was house number 3. They weren’t showing for a few more days, so she made the first available appointment, and contacted the selling agent.

She told the selling agent my story - that I’d been looking for ages and kept getting beat out, but that I was a serious buyer and really excited to see the house.

On the day of the showing, I was just sort of “meh” about it. It checked a lot of the boxes - it was walkable. It was small. It had a small yard. But by this point, I’d gotten my hopes up so high for other houses, only to be let down when I didn’t get them, so I wasn’t about to let myself get excited about this one. Especially because this one is in the most desirable neighborhood in this particular town. The house itself is walking distance to the beach, and to the train station to New York City.

The selling agent was at the house when I went. She made a comment about how fit I looked, and I told her I was a personal trainer, and we got to chatting. We had a lovely little chat, and then I said my goodbyes.

By this point, I knew the market and figured that priced in the mid $400s it would go for either just under $500 or slightly over $500. I bid right around there, was the first offer in….annnnd subsequently lost the damn house.

At that point, I didn’t even care. I was half expecting not to get it, so whatever. The selling agent told my agent that she felt so badly, because she knew how many houses I’d lost but that there was 1 offer higher than mine and not by much. She said I was then tied for second highest, and there was 5 other offers under me and whoever I was tied with. She said she would keep an eye out and let my agent know if anything was coming on the market that might work for me.

But then she called back three days later and said the original buyers backed out! She said she loved my energy and remembered our convo at the appointment, so she wanted to offer it to me first before offering it to the other person I was tied with.

I’ll be honest- I went back and forth for a hot second. Did I really want to drop nearly all my money on a little tiny beach house?! I mean, not really. At the same time, I figured if I put some work into it I could probably either sell it for a profit or rent it out in the future if I moved on elsewhere. Given the proximity to the beach and the train station, it shouldn’t be hard to rent or sell! So I said yes.

I put 20% down so I didn’t have to deal with PMI, and worked with AFC Mortgage Group - and they were fantastic, especially if you’re a small business owner. Close took just under 30 days, and everything went perfectly. I did an inspection for information purposes, which I highly recommend doing. Everything came back perfectly, thankfully.

After Closing

The house was move-in ready, but it could’ve used a little TLC - it’s an adorable little house from the 20s and has a lot of charm and original bones, like the gorgeous subfloor which was discovered after pulling up the carpet.

The first thing that was done was turning this mudroom, which was originally a porch, into a better use of space. I had the wall knocked down, which really opened up the space. Here are a few before and after pics from Stories on Instagram.

What I didn’t anticipate was how the woods were going to be different and essentially impossible to match with a stain. I’d need to get an entire new floor if I wanted the woods to match, and that just wasn’t in the budget. I wound up doing a clear coat of polyurethane, and decided that because the woods were different that could actually be one of the ways to define the different living spaces. My kitchen table now sits in the entryway and it actually works really nicely, which you’ll see later on in this post.

The Kitchen Dilemma

The pic of the kitchen is a little blurry because it’s a screenshot from a video, but the kitchen was adorable, but tiny. The cabinets were super, super old and so narrow my plates didn’t fit in them. Originally I was going to just do new uppers. I like uppers to go all the way to the ceiling with no crown trim - that feels fresh and modern to me and with a tiny kitchen, I wanted as much storage space as possible. But then I felt like there was an opportunity to create more countertop space by installing an island, so I essentially wound up doing a complete kitchen renovation - oops - with new cabinets, countertops, sink and backsplash. (Insert emoji of money flying away.) Here’s a screenshot from a video, so it’s a bit blurry but you can see how the island really opened it up.

The Closet

The entire house was also painted inside. Because part of me doesn’t know how long I’m going to be here and I wanted to maximize rental opportunities down the line, I chose Balboa Mist by Benjamin Moore for the majority of the house. If this were a longer term home, I would have chosen something a little more adventurous, but Balboa Mist is really bright and airy and I do love it. Also, I did get to live out my adventurous dreams with Dragon’s Breath by Benjamin Moore in my closet shown above.

I spent all day today organizing my closet. It took me five hours, and then I tapped out. I’m nearly done, but not all the way. The chair I have is a little too short for the vanity. I’d like to get a new lighting fixture but the the current one is just not it for me, and I’m not sure I like the way I’ve stored a few things - but for now, it’s fine. I keep having to remind myself that - things take time….but I want it all done NOW, haha.

After that, the main living area needed tackling. It’s not quite done - tomorrow my kitchen guy will come and start the backsplash tiling, frame out the fridge and that cabinet above the fridge, and affix the island to the wall, but here’s what it looks like now. I don’t think I’ll do a proper coffee table - I don’t feel like there’s space for it. I might get one of those acrylic trays or something for the ottoman. I’d like to get a rug, and I need to figure out curtains…. so much to do.

I need to buy a few stools for the island. I just checked Facebook marketplace and found three of these which I think will be perfect. Man, I love when things work out like that.

I also need to buy a new light fixture for the kitchen (the boob light’s gotta go), and one for other the dining table. I’d like to do a petal style fixture like this for above the dining table, and something simple like this for the kitchen.

It’s crazy how many things I find I need to buy to organize and settle in. Various baskets, organization and storage containers, and garbage can (why are the kitchen ones so expensive?! I just bought this one), a faucet, a broom, cleaning products, the list feels endless. Luckily, there’s so much good stuff on Facebook Marketplace for the furniture items I still need like the console for the living area, a tv (mine brand new one broke in the move, ugh), a headboard and bed frame, nightstands…. the list goes on and on.

One thing at a time, I gotta remind myself. One thing at a time. Either way, I’m feeling really grateful and so happy to be settling in to my new place.