Kate in the Valley: Five Bids, No House

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Blogger’s Note: Today we welcome L.A. Land Diarist ‘Kate in the Valley.’ Kate has been house-hunting for six months and blogging about it at ‘May 5 & Everything After’ -- and we like her style. We hope you will too:

Hi! I’m Kate. Remember? From last Sunday? Well, guess what? One thing led to another and now I’ll be here each week to share my house-hunting adventures with you. You love it, right?

I’ve been seriously house hunting for the last six months (six!), dragging one extremely bored Mr. Kate from open house to open house, without success. Not for lack of trying, though. We’ve bid on five houses so far. One problem is that we only go after below-market-price properties in popular neighborhoods. Each time it was a little different, but essentially it came down to a bidding war where somebody was willing to do something that we either couldn’t do (like pay all cash with a 21-day escrow) or wouldn’t do (like waive all inspections).

Every time I tell my parents what the winning bidder agreed to, they are completely shocked. Of course, they haven’t bought a house in more than 40 years, and a lot has changed since then. On their house hunt, back in 1963, my parents ventured forth relying on nothing more than their friendly real estate agent.

(More below: Kate has looked at more than 60 houses and expects to pay 40 times what her parents paid for a house.... Read more ‘Kate in the Valley’ below)

I’ve ditched the idea of a traditional agent (oh, don’t worry, I’ll get to that in a future post!) and rely instead on my trusty MLS RSS feed and a wealth of publicly available stats on the Internet. Since my parents refuse to get Internet access, they never cease to be impressed that I can find out the sale price for every house on their street that sold over the last decade. Of course, they also think there is no limit to the information I can dig up and sometimes ask me for details that I don’t think even the CIA would have. But I digress.

My parents looked at a total of three houses. I’ve looked at hundreds online, more than sixty in person. They paid a mere $18,000; I expect to pay more than 40 times that. But there are a couple of things that haven’t changed: (1) there’s more to return on investment than just dollars and cents when it comes to a home; and (2) the L.A. real estate market has your back but only if you stay put long enough.

We’re taking our time, weighing our options, and waiting for the right house at the right price. We aren’t looking for a quick buck (good thing, huh?); we’re in it for the long haul. It could take us another six months or it could take us another year. We’re just hoping to find a yard for our big ole shaggy dog relatively soon (so when she kills the grass by peeing on the same spot over and over, it’ll be our grass).

Tune in next week when I ponder whether Mr. Kate and I will ever want the same house and if this is maybe because Mr. Kate refuses to watch any more HGTV.

Comments? Let loose.