Bridgetown Bungalow

Photo: Carly E Diaz

This week was a hot one in Portland with every day hovering between 90° and 95°. There is no air conditioning in the house, which typically means early morning runs, long days at work, and adventures to places with air conditioning in the evening.

Tuesday was our first attempt at cooking with the Instant Pot we got on Prime Day, a great way to avoid a hot oven! We made Columbian Chicken Stew, a recipe from the infamous Kenjy Lopez. I hope to dig into more of his recipes and techniques from his book The Food Lab once the heat subsides.

Wednesday was my first trip to Kachka to catch up with a friend from grad school. The decor mixed eastern European staples with modern finishes. I mean come on, who knew lace doilies and parquet floors could look so chic. Not to mention, the food was on point: Herring ‘under a fur coat’, Imeruilan Khachapuri, and Siberian Pelmen.

On Friday, we went to one of our favorite food carts southeast of town, Egyptian Bros, and ventured over to Laurelhurst Theater to see Three Identical Twins. This was our first trip to the theater since their decision to start playing feature films. The tickets were $9 instead of $4, but we got the same great service, ample beer selection, new comfy chairs, and lovely pre-film advertisements from @freepdxcrap. As for the movie, it was great. We had meaningful conversation about nature vs. nurture, ethics, and study design the whole car ride home. We ended the evening, in our now much cooler house, with Steven Pinker’s Ted Talk Is the world getting better or worse? A much needed dose of optimism if you ask me.

To round it out, our new Libby Beer Glasses and my Lancome Le Crayon Eye Liner in Black Ebony arrived!

Rest up this weekend!

Buying a house is not for everyone.

Nick and I navigated several uncomfortable conversations to get our finances squared away before considering a home purchase. This meant paying down debt and enough funds in the bank to live off of for 3-4 months. We affectionately call this the “oh shit” fund. Oh shit funds set you up well for those unexpected repairs (animal ravaged flexible ducting and pest control in our case).

It is also entirely possible that renting makes more sense than buying for your unique situation. Maybe you plan to move in a year or you have insanely low rent already. There are loads of rent vs. buy calculators out there to help assess your best strategy. We used this one in our analysis as it also helped us determine how much house to buy and how long we would need to keep the house in order for buying a house to pencil out.

This is a home design and DIY blog, so I won’t go into the nitty gritty of home affordability, but there are a few rules we used that worked for us.

1. Paying private mortgage insurance (PMI) seemed to defeated the whole point of putting our money towards building equity so we planned to put 20% down.
2. In any analysis of whether we had enough cash to buy a particular house, we anticipated paying 1% of the home’s list price plus one year of taxes to cover closing costs and fees. This will vary based on local laws and regulations.
3. We targeted a monthly payment that was no more than 30% of our post-tax income, assuming we would opt for a 30-year fixed rate loan. We love this house, but we also love food and adventure, and paying any more than 30% of our take home pay would have made food and adventure much more difficult.

Build a Team.

We interviewed and selected a loan officer first, which is kind of backwards. They were able to recommend a few real estate agents. This selection was tough for me. I really enjoyed reviewing listings and touring homes. Why did I need to pay some one to do this for me? I quickly learned two valuable reasons. First, licensed realtors have the keys to the kingdom. They can show you any house at any time (if unoccupied). Second, experienced realtors have a lot of tools in their toolbox. The Portland market was hot. We competed with 13 other offers for one listing. Our realtors drafted offers that we could not have dreamed up on our own – including things like rent backs, escalation clauses, and more.

On to the fun part. “Shopping” for a home!

Just like we did for our wedding, Nick and I determined our “must haves” which included parking and a neighborhood we could enjoy now that was also anticipated to appreciate quickly. Our nice to have was an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), which we later realized was wishful thinking. We leveraged features on Zillow and Redfin to enhance our shopping efficiency. Our favorite time and energy saving tools were filtering searches to only those with parking, customizing the mortgage payment based on our needs, and reviewing the neighborhood section for projected appreciation rates. Poorly staged listings were always welcome as that helped weed out some of the competition (recall, 13 other offers!!).

Submitting an offer.

At this point, you likely have a good idea of list price. Unfortunately, list price may not always translate to what your competition is willing to pay. Portland’s strategy: list the house for much less than it is worth to attract as many buyers as possible and then let the hunger games begin. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Your realtor can help you look at similar listings that recently sold. They have access to what the house was listed for as well as what it eventually sold for. The missing element is still what the buyers offered. There are almost always concessions during the inspection and closing process, one of which could be lowering the price. As previously stated, give your realtor some freedom to be creative with how to make your home offer stand out.

If you live in a hot market like we do, you may also need to be conscious of timelines. We fell into a pattern quickly. Homes were listed on or around Thursday, there was an open house Saturday or Sunday, and offers were reviewed on Tuesday. Prepare for quick decision making. Of course, if you are looking in a not-so-hot market, the odds may be in your favor.

Inspection and closing.

This part was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Ultimately, my best advice is to rely on your team. Your real estate agent likely has relationships with anyone you could ever need to get an inspection done and work up any issues found in the inspection. They are also skilled at being a third party negotiator and good real estate agents will walk you through decisions pragmatically and with patience. Your lender will know when to lock in a mortgage interest rate and whether to incorporate points for a better rate. Then a day or so after you sign your life away at the title company office, you have the keys to your own abode. Huzzah!

I am curious to know, what was your experience like buying a home?

We bought our house in June 2017. At the time, and to the day of this post, demand for rental properties far exceeded supply in Portland, OR. So… rent was high. It is my nature to thoroughly research every decision, so I scoured the internet to understand the risks and benefits of renting versus buying property. Buying a home seemed to be a good investment after 5ish years, especially considering our current and anticipated rent, so we bought a house!

I will be honest, buying a house was challenging. Stay tuned for a whole post on our house hunt. We prioritized location, space for parking, and current/future livability. This landed us a 1970’s ranch in an amazing neighborhood – the perfect daily commute to work and life for both me and my husband.

Immediately (really before we officially closed on the house), my brain began reimagining rooms and day dreaming about what this house could be. We cleaned and painted and cleaned and painted and moved in two weeks later. For the first year in the house, I spent my free time pinning, marking up home design catalogs, browsing the isles of home improvement stores, and eventually reading many many DIY and home design blogs for inspiration.

Today, I publish the first ever post on Bridgetown Bungalow. I am excited to have a venue to create, write, photograph, and interact with others. I am exited to commit to documenting this journey, which I anticipate will be much bigger than home improvement. Anticipate to see me grow as a designer, life partner, proud cat mom, and much more. Thank you so much for joining me in this adventure! I hope you feel welcome and inspired.