Badass Homeowner

Sooo... I've been gone from this site for about 3 years now.  Wow.  Time flies.  But I've been gone for several very good and exciting reasons.  Number one, my career as an artist really started to take off and if I had time to write a blog post I did it on my own website (I won't link to it because I prefer to remain anonymous on here).  Number two, I bought a house!  Anyone who has ever bought a house knows how long and emotionally hard that process is.  Not to mention getting your new house ready with repairs, paint, unpacking... But it's been worth it, and I felt that my experience in home buying would make a good post because I have some advice to share on "how to buy a home as a Badass Chick".

When you first start seriously thinking about buying a home for the first time you have this vision in mind of your dream place.  For some people it's a modern style condo in the hip trendy part of the city.  For others it's a rustic place out in the country on sprawling land.  Some people like to live in the suburbs where their money can get them more bang for their buck, and others like older homes with vintage charm or fixers that they can really make their own.  Everyone has their vision.  Then you start actually shopping around and reality hits.

Maybe for your budget the size of house you want is out of your league, maybe there aren't many homes available in the part of the city you want to live in,  maybe all that's in your range is a very generic bland house that feels like your first college apartment.  Your realtor, your family, and your friends will all give you advice on what you should be looking for or where you should be looking.  This is when you need to put on your Badass Chick attitude and stick to your guns.  Of course there will be compromises, but you need to think about what's really important to you and stand firm.  Is it the location?  The size and number of rooms?  The style?  The price?  Get creative but don't let other people tell you what you should buy because this is YOUR HOUSE!  You're going to have to live in it, not them.  If you wake up everyday in a house you hate in an area you don't want to live it's going to make you miserable.

My home buying experience was that my husband and I wanted to buy a duplex or some sort of conjoined home with my sister and her fiance.  We liked fun vintage homes, but most important to us was that we stayed in the city.  We live in Portland which is broken up into funky little neighborhoods, each with their own vibe and culture.  We wanted to live somewhere where we could walk to everything, with food and entertainment right in the area, and somewhere not too far from downtown.  Our realtor, however, kept showing us places in the middle of nowhere, far away from the city.  Helpful and well meaning people kept telling us that there was nothing in the city and that we should look in the suburbs.  Nothing against people that love the suburbs, your school districts are great and your houses are big, but I grew up there and they make me claustrophobic.  I love the city and those places just aren't right for us.  It started to feel hopeless though, and so we started the process of putting in an offer on a place in Oregon City.  Far away from our beloved city.  Surrounded by nothing and with nothing to walk to.  Thankfully the sewer and house inspection raised red alerts so we didn't move forward.  Several months later we ended up buying an amazing duplex in an eclectic little neighborhood hidden in the North of the city.  It's incredibly walkable, has tons of stuff to do here, the people are really friendly, it's a short drive to downtown, and it's affordable!  We stuck to our guns and even though many people thought that our ideas were strange, now they are love to come visit our weird little family compound in the funky neighborhood.

I've watched so many of my friends go through the same thing, and I've realized that the perfect home is different for everyone.  Sometimes it can feel like there's only one path and it leads to the nice house in the burbs with a picket fence, but if that's not right for you that's fine!  I was so worried that I would have to compromise what was important to me to own a home, but we finally found something that feels like us.  One of the rules of being a Badass Chick is that she goes her own way and sticks to her guns, but for major life events like buying a house sometimes it feels like there are no alternatives.  I'm here to tell you that there are!  I love to look at all the different places and ways that people live on OffBeat Home and Life, so take a virtual tour of a studio in the city, or an old Victorian house, a co-op housing unit, or a capsule home.  If you're looking for a new home take the time to find something that's uniquely you, because every Badass Chick needs a place to call home.

Happy hunting!
Ms. G