Dump the apartment, buy a house
I bought a hose the other day. I spent a long time researching them because it seems there are lots of variations of hoses. My familiarity with hoses is pretty limited, but I guess there's no time like the present, because last week, Leen and I closed on our new house. Wednesday, we moved in. We took this photo about an hour after a very stressful closing day. Clark, our relator, was not actually present. His wife had only recently given birth to a child, so we photoshopped him in.
Our new house with it’s great blue door.
This new house comes equipped with an extensive garden set up. Some things need to be picked and pruned and watered, and who knows what other verbiage I need to learn to be a homeowner/gardener. It doesn’t help that it’s been terribly hot for the past few days. This means many of the things in our garden are dying, but it’s too hot to water them. I was sitting on the front steps last night trying to pilfer internet from anyone I could when I found that a fluffle of rabbits built a warren in my strawberry patch, and a neighborhood cat has been terrorizing them.
So yeah. It’s been a big week over here.
Leen finds a turnip
We saw the house back in mid-July with our friend and realtor Clark. We did not have financing or a sniff of income at the time, but we liked the place, so we bet on ourselves and went for it. Someone compared it to showing up at a hot restaurant without a reservation and hoping for a table.
Through a series of financial figurings that surpass my understanding, we got pre-approval late one evening and prepared our offer the next day. We came in over asking because it's a seller's market. We contemplated going higher— the house does have three bathrooms after all— but decided to make our first bid on a home, even if it was a losing effort.
We figured: let’s learn how this process works. No one gets their first bid anyway. Let’s not commit to overspending and in hopes of winning only to lose. Instead, let’s put in an offer with which we were comfortable and live to fight another day.
We paired our offer with a heartfelt letter— think: a dump but more emotional— that Clark told me was twice as long as any letter he’d ever sent before. We wrote about how much we loved the colors and space. We painted a picture of Eliot, the Toddler learning to walk in the basement and juxtaposed it with Eliot, the Teenager angrily stomping down the basement stairs to get away from us.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I did not think that we would get this house. I had basically given up before our offer even went in.
You can imagine the surprise felt when Clark called to say, “You got the house.”
We spent the last month walking past the house nearly every day (it’s only about five blocks from our rental location, so it’s not like it was a long walk) and preparing to move. We tried to avoid being terribly weird about it, but you know, sometimes, you’re just excited!
I will paint in the broadest of strokes as I walk you through what it was like to close on a house in times of COVID19. I cannot speak to what it usually is like because this is my first house.
We scheduled our closing for a Friday. If I were suggesting closing dates to a close friend, I would not recommend Friday. Close on a Monday, maybe a Tuesday. It gives everyone time to get their ducks in a row, and if you miss early in the week, there is still ample week left to settle your issues. Our appointment was Friday at noon. At 11:30, I called the title company intending to say: “Hey, what do I bring to a closing. First-time buyer, long time house looker.”
They didn’t pick up.
Then Clark texted: Closing is postponed.
This was about 25 minutes before we were slated to seal this thing!
If you recall, Leen’s initial immigration interview, also scheduled for noon, also postponed about 25 minutes before it was supposed to start. That led to a one month pause in our plans to return home and many anxiety-ridden days and nights for the Hasler family.
We spent the next three hours on the phone trying to explain a lot of financial transactions that I won’t get into too much detail on at the moment. It was touch and go there for a bit whether or not we would be able to close at all that day, and I have no idea how close to losing the house we were. Felt very close for a while. I definitely said: Oh well, guess we have to start looking again.
Sometimes I would take photos of Eliot in front of the house even though we didn’t live there.
Thankfully, after a lot of emails, a handful of phone calls, a discussion with Clark about a guy who tried to date my high school girlfriend while I was dating her, my mom signing some paperwork, a trip to McDonald's and an emergency call to my brother asking for a baby-sitter, we left to sign the requisite papers.
When we arrived at Chicago Title, we were the only people there. We were given pens and escorted into a room. We sat in this room for an hour with a lovely woman called Sarah, and she explained to us how the next thirty years were going to go. I signed what felt like 100 pieces of paper, and after an hour, she handed us a bottle of water and some hand sanitizer and said: Congratulations on your new home!
I am still a little confused "how" I pay for the house. I mean, I have the money, but I am not sure where the money goes. The addition of a title company into everything plus the prospect of my mortgage guy packaging my house elsewhere means that when the first bill is due, I sort of know what's happening, but I cannot say with 100% confidence I know who it's going to. I asked a few times, but the answer was never crystal clear, and after all that signing, I was tired, and my brother needed a cheeseburger. So come first payment time, expect me to be pretty confused and a bit anxious. Like: Did I even buy this house? Am I squatting here illegally? When does the other shoe drop? Is this all one giant Ponzi scheme? Have you seen the Nic Cage movie Matchstick Men? Is that this?
After we closed, we decided it would be wise to tackle any home reno projects before actually moving in. I spent the weekend painting. We hired cleaners to come to give it a once over. While I was standing on my front porch one afternoon, the seller's agent popped over to pick up his sign. We got to talking, and he congratulated me on such a great house. He mentioned that one of the reasons we got the house was our "kickass" letter. Let this be a lesson for you: if you are trying to buy a home, write a kick-ass letter, or offer us money to write one for you.
After that, it was all smooth sailing, and nothing stressful or eventful happened in between.
Just kidding. Because everything always happens all at once, before we could move in, I had to go to work for my first days on campus. I spent Monday at school, planning for education in a state of Hybrid (I am pretty opposed to Hybrid. Don't feel the risk outweighs the benefits and haven't really heard a case the other direction, but I am not in charge, so I will wear a mask and face shield and hope I can hold my breath for many hours a day). I took Tuesday off, so Leen and I could pack (not an easy feat with a 10-month-old) and clean the apartment. Seven boxes, five suitcases, a tv, a credenza, a couch, a desk, a chair, a crib, a lot of clothes, kitchenware, a baby chair, a trunk, all piled up in the living room so that in the AM, our movers could pack it and go.
The move itself was pretty uneventful, though I had to ask the guys to wear masks despite it being like 96 degrees and 87% humidity. I did offer them some lemonade, and my mom gave them banana bread. Seems like they may have broken the couch and the credenza along the way, which… isn’t a great return on services, but I guess those are the breaks.
I spent part of my morning talking to a furniture repair company up here. They offered to send someone out to look at the couch. He reckoned it would cost about $250 for parts and labor, but I don’t know the first part about couch repair. I need a place to sit in my new living room, so it seems necessary. As for the credenza… we’d thought it was time to mount the tv anyway, so I guess this just pushes us to begin that adventure sooner rather than later.
The two-toned purple room had to be painted.
And here we are, a few days after the movers have left, slowly filling in the empty spaces with details from our life in Qatar, and our recent purchases at home. We are trying to figure out the best place to keep the bowls and find a drawer well equipped to be the home to “junk.” We debate what type of floor lamp should sit in the living room and how many books to stuff onto each shelf. As a couple, we spent a lot of time contemplating what our house would be like; it’s surreal to grasp that I am sitting in my dining room writing this dump. Leen is out in the garden picking cucumbers. The windows are open to the din of traffic and families on evening strolls going past.
It’s easy to look back and think about how life has changed since COVID-19 hit. Still, if in December of 2019, you’d told me that I was going to be an employed homeowner, with a toothy baby and a brilliant wife, I would have said: sign me up. Now, those things are all true, but they seem to have come with a cost, or a caveat: You can have a house, nearer to your family and friends, and have a job, but in exchange, we’re going to spring a global pandemic on the world.
I think I still would have taken the offer, but that’s probably very selfish.
Would you trade what you have now for life to go back to life before this? I may be in the minority here, but as crummy as things are, there are some silver linings that I have to acknowledge. I’ll happily debate this point with you if you so chose so. I think I am on the fence, and if you come with a strong argument, I could be persuaded the other way.
Backyard life
In the meantime, expect more updates about school and the house going forward.
And now, just a few quick links and commentary, you know, the Dump aspect of these posts.
A few years ago, I asked my dad to draw up a will for me. I was living abroad; I traveled a lot, everyone drove poorly around me, I’d recently married. I thought it was a good idea to make sure that my assets (record collection, good pants, rainy day fund, baking skills) had a right home in the event of my untimely demise. As I plan a return to campus (again: not thrilled), I think it’s probably time to update it. My assets have recently taken on a more finite-state (see: house), and I have an heir to whom I could bequeath something (2015 Honda CRV). If you have found yourself contemplating life or more aptly, I suppose, death, in 2020, then take a look here at what you need to get your will taken care of. Like the angry British man I went hiking with in South Africa said to the 8 Qatari boys, he was about to drag and carry through the Underberg Mountains: prior planning prevents piss poor performance. Don’t plan poorly; get a will. Find out how here.
My friend Ben always used to drink Apple Cider Vinegar tea. This was back in 2012, and he used to sit outside our apartment in Qatar, burn a heater and drink this tea concoction that I frankly always found a bit odd. Maybe he was onto something. ACV has definitely had a moment since Ben opened my eyes to the beverage. Even I can be found buying a Snapple-like drink that mixed ACV with blueberries, lemonade, and mint from time to time. Leen is a lot like me in 2012, a bit weirded out, and I can’t really blame her. The drink definitely has a distinct taste and is not a smooth sipper, but something about it is refreshing. I don’t know. Can’t explain it. All of which is to ask: is apple cider vinegar even healthy or good for you? I’ll leave the answer to the doctors.
Last one— it’s about race. I heard recently that often time white people are more concerned with being perceived as a racist than truly reflecting and worrying about if they are racist. Here is a profile of current antiracist activist Ibram X Kendi. The story documents his journey to being the leader of a necessary movement in America right now. If there’s one reason to support the antiracist movement, it’s because Stephen Miller hates and fears it. And it seems like a wise position to be opposed to just about anything that guy supports. If you’re not sure, Kendi suggests that one of the keys to being an antiracist is empathy. “In other words, what if we lived in a world in which everyone watched that video and felt a knee on their neck? I think we'd probably have a very different world.” Read the profile here.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Let me know what you’re up to. Take care and best of luck.
