So this is Christmas / And what have you done….

At the start of November 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I packed up our old apartment mostly by myself and moved us to a little college town apartment. It was a short term solution–we were working on buying a house, were well into a mortgage application process for a first time buyer program, and there were lots of places available in town. It meant putting even more stuff into storage, where most of our books have been for over a decade at this point. It meant squeezing in to a college town apartment. But it would only be for a couple months.

This is our third holiday season in the place.

The mortgage program was bogged down with people, and it took far too long for us to get over the last couple hurdles. (That’s the very short version.) And then the housing market had gone from lots of quick turnover to houses getting all cash offers and waiving inspections. We’ve put six offers out over more than a year. Two went to all-cash no-inspection offers below our offering price. One we just lost out on. One (that we loved) the seller decided at the last minute they weren’t actually going to sell. The fifth one was actually accepted, but then the home inspection revealed that the guy that had done some major work on the house had *almost* known what he was doing and it was falling down in slow motion. The latest was a place that would need a lot of work, and the current owner…well, lets just say they haven’t accepted the most recent adjustments in the housing market and thinks he can still get prices that were flying around this time last year.

And now here we are at the holidays again. Last year, there were no new houses up between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, just a couple of very expensive ones that were out of our reach. There’s a a little activity in town this year, and two magnificent houses that I can’t afford (both updated Victorians) and a handful of places that are just…too awkward for one reason or another.

Another year over / And a new one just begun