Pete's Log: The House That Wasn't
Entry #2654, (Homeownership, Life in General)(posted when I was 46 years old.)
Back in 2016, Jamie and I were not actively looking for a house. We were content renting half a duplex in North Riverside. But somehow we became aware of a cute little house for sale in Riverside.
It is close to the Riverside Metra station where we were commuting from at the time and it was cheap. We drove past it a few times and we got to thinking about it. That Christmas we visited Munich. While there, we told various friends about the house we were thinking about. And talking about it just got us thinking about it more.
When we returned home, we engaged a realtor, but by that time we had mostly decided that the cute little house in Riverside was probably too little. And also that we probably wanted to move to Brookfield. We gave our realtor a price range but also mentioned we'd like to just have a look at the place in Riverside. By that time, however, it was already under contract, so we never went and looked.
Instead, we looked at half a dozen places in Brookfield before our realtor apologetically took us to a place across the street from a house we had just looked at. It was above the range we had given her, but after all the places she had looked at with us, it seemed she had a feel for what we were looking for. And she was right. We fell in love with the house immediately and closed on it on March 1, 2017. Eight years later we still love the place.
The place in Riverside abuts the BNSF tracks and I occasionally look for it when I go past on the train. I spotted it yesterday. It's still cute. And it's way too small for us. Things worked out, but that little house triggered the process. Whoever put it under contract when we wanted to look at it in 2017 still owns it. I hope they're happy there.