15-52-2013: Open House

17

April 14, 2013 – We spent the weekend looking at townhouses and duplexes and at the end of it all I am completely disheartened.

We want to move. It’s time. We’ve been in our condo for 19 years now. The problem is that our condo is simply fabulous. It’s bright, we get the afternoon/evening sun streaming into our living room and we have over 330 square feet of outdoor deck, garden and patio. We have a massive kitchen, a great sized bedroom, and a really open floor plan. Most people don’t believe it’s only 781 square feet because it feel so much bigger. Even with our really big furniture.

So a few weeks ago we started looking at neighbourhoods around the North Shore. We went into some brand new townhomes and duplexes and were completely disappointed with all of them. The sizes sound great, but when they are put over three or four floors, every floor is tiny and cramped.

Then we walked into a place and I fell in love. It backed onto a ravine and the moss covered trees were so tranquil. The place is three floors, but every level is split, so it’s really six levels. And although I loved it, I was also mentally knocking out walls, renovating the kitchen and two bathrooms, and adding it all up into the $100 – $200 thousand dollar range over the asking price, which is already more than double the value of our place without the added renovations.

So we watched, and waited. And then last week it was pulled off the market. Three offers but none acceptable to the owners. But it kicked us into gear a bit. We called our agent up and said OK, we need to sit down and discuss the value of our place and start to move forward. We have done a lot to our condo, the only thing that hasn’t ever been touched is our bathtub/shower. Everything else has been renovated over the years. Shirley came to a starting price to list at and we were surprised because it was higher than we had expected.

We have the money mostly in place, the bank has approved us for a home credit line that contains a moderately small mortgage (by Vancouver standards) that gives us a great deal of flexibility since there is the sale of our place to add in, as well as the closing of Mom’s Estate when it finalizes and the house sells. All of that should bring us back down to a reasonable mortgage that is within the range we are willing to take. And to be honest, if we emptied our investing account of the cash not currently in stocks, we could probably manage without the sale of our place being part of the equation. But do we want to?

Shirley took us around to see several townhouses yesterday and to say I was disappointed was an understatement. The purpose of the exercise was not so much to find something as it was to get a feeling that if we don’t get the one we sort of fell in love with and our place was listed and or/got an offer, could we find something else. The exercise failed for me.

Of the five we viewed I absolutely loved the first, close to where we currently are. But it really had no parking to speak of and with two motorcycles, a scooter, and a truck to house, that wasn’t an option.

The second one was pretty, but had no privacy at all. All of the outdoor spaces looked towards another unit. Fail.

The third and fourth were hopeful. They were out towards Mount Seymour, in Northlands. A lovely area on the edge of a towering forest.Both of them were horrible disappointments. The first had a strange layout that needed a major wall taken out to open it up, and required all new carpets throughout. All of the bathrooms also needed renovating. The next had a kitchen smaller than we have now, in a place 1100 square feet larger. The master bedroom was huge, and on the main floor, off the kitchen. Our agent, rightly, said by the time the place was renovated to work for us we would end up turning a three bedroom into a one bedroom.

The last one was on Keith Road and had a wonderful Japanese garden at the entry. It was peaceful and had a lovely water feature. But on entry it just wasn’t going to work. There were some funky dips in the flooring as we walked through it, and it felt cut up. It also only had a single car garage. Another fail.

So Kirk and I went to the pub to talk about how to move forward. How badly do we want the one that set us off? We came down to the agreement that our biggest dilemma is light. It has a good sized kitchen space, the bedrooms are workable (one would be turned into a dressing room), and we thought we could open up the formal dining room to the living room below. As we looked at the photos again, we realized that’s not actually possible due to the split floor plan, so that gave us pause, and made us start to think about light again.

The place is fabulous for it’s location mainly, but it’s windows face North mostly, and the East windows face the ravine. There is one deck on the West side, but it is set back a bit. We are so used to bright light and sunshine, and now we are concerned that we overlooked this fundamental thing.

So today we did a few things in the am, and then went for a drive to see what else was out there. We went by a duplex that showed fabulous on the internet, but the location was a totally slummy area. We didn’t bother going into the open house. Then we stumbled on a lovely place in the Edgemont area. We walked in and knew we were over our heads, but didn’t realize how much. The agent said it was a lovely place to downsize to. At 3100 square feet we’d love to know what someone would be downsizing from! But for the tune of $1.4 million, this townhouse could be ours. No thanks, that’s a little less than double what we are looking at. Anywhere but the Lower Mainland it would have been about a half million.

We drove around and stopped in front of many and looked up the prices online rather than get excited. They were anywhere from $900K to $1.8 million. We stumbled on an adorable little house that was only $735,000 and when we went in, although adorable, it really wasn’t what we want, particularly as it didn’t have anything but street parking. It was a bungalow, and honestly, most of it was nicely renovated. But when the agent started talking about how it could be lifted and a second floor added, and how the backyard could have a garage built, we started to do the math and said thank you for your time.

And at the end of the day we came home to the sun streaming into our place and all I can feel is depressed and disheartened. We aren’t first time homebuyers, we don’t have a mortgage currently and have no debt at all. How can it be so difficult to find a new place to live when we are willing to spend so much.

I don’t want to put our place on the market and find nothing to buy, and from what we saw this weekend, I’m terrified that would be the outcome and we’d end up either having to rent until we found something, or have to settle for something less than appealing. I’m not interested in either option.

Not sure what to do at this point.

So we went home and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned since I think we are having our place photographed for eventual listing.

Well, if nothing else, the place looks absolutely fabulous after all the work we’ve put into it these past few weeks.

Feeling frustrated.