Rewind: Buying our First Home

It’s been a while since I last posted about our search for our first home. I’ve just been so darn busy since January. As soon as the suite renos were done, we jumped into the landscaping and gardening. And what a project that has been! Not much landscaping has EVER been done here. There was a lot to clean up and haul away, and literally tons to bring in (top soil, sod, gravel, bark mulch, sand, stone, bricks, lumber…). I’m almost finished planting, and there is a gigantic pile of top soil and bark mulch to spread. Oh, and I have to finish painting the front deck. On and on!

So where did I leave off? I had seen our home on MLS a month or so earlier while doing cursory searches (probably around June). It wasn’t until we were SERIOUSLY looking to buy (late July) that I saw it the second time and decided we should have a look even though it was in Sooke, about a 45-minute drive from Victoria. And so we did. We were quite taken with the house and the property immediately. We loved the old character and appreciated the updates: kitchen and bathrooms. And really, the kitchen is quite beautiful. I loved all the space: a family room, formal living room and a separate dining room. Three bedrooms upstairs and a huge bathroom. The real estate agent selling the house showed us around and gave us the details. (We didn’t have an agent yet.)

- The house had been moved from Oak Bay in 1989 (the proved to be incorrect, the house was actually from the Gorge area, where a Tim Horton’s now resides). Because of new building codes, the electrical and plumbing was updated, the plaster walls were replaced with gyrock, and of course a new foundation was poured. The lower floor was added when the house was moved, and more recently renovated into a one-bedroom suite (we turned it into a two-bedroom suite).

- The property is about 0.28 of an acre. It was once two lots, when our road and the cross road leading to the highway was subdivided and a subdivision was planned. That fell through, and when the house was moved two lots were converted into one. The smaller lot to the west has an easement on it, meaning we can’t build anything there without permission from our neighbour, as their septic field actually sits at the top corner of our property. The neighbour’s lots is long and skinny – no room for a septic field. There’s talk that this side of Sooke should have municipal sewer in five years or so, but who knows.

We looked at another house, a new one, past the village of Sooke up Otter Point Road. It was very nice and we liked it quite a lot. One acre and it overlooks a lake. It was $425,000. However, we didn’t see a lot of potential there, and it didn’t have a suite. It was also another 15-minute drive.

We liked our house much more. And it didn’t take us long to decide to put in an offer, although we did have to talk a lot about it. Moving out to Sooke was a big decision, considering Tyler works in James Bay. That means he would have to commute every day. We asked around, and discovered that Tyler’s hours would just miss the heavy traffic rush hours. Bonus! I really wanted this house, and Ty’s commute could have been the deal-breaker. We figured the house had tons of potential:

- A good-sized suite for extra income. As well, it’s nice enough for us to live in if we ever need to, and rent out the top two floors instead.

- We could run a bed and breakfast here.

- If and when we hook up to municipal sewer, we can subdivide and sell the other lot. Or we could build a carriage house there and have it as a vacation rental.

- We love the idea of fixing up a house rather than paying for someone else to do the work. While the house certainly had some big and expensive updates, it still needed quite a lot of work. We felt that instead of buying a house that needed EVERYTHING renovated, maybe it would be good to “get our feet wet” and start out with something just slightly less than perfect.

- We could run a photography studio here. The master bedroom is big enough for a studio, and we could use the formal living room as a gallery and client meeting space.

- Because of the character of the house, it’s perfect for branding. We are in fact re-branding my photography to Three Stories. The name works for photography AND for the house. It’s so perfect if we ever open a gallery here.

- Sooke is an up-and-coming area. Lots of development going on, and we expect house prices to remain steady or increase in the next few years.

- The house is close to the Sooke Basin (it even has “ocean glimpses”), a pebble beach, the Galloping Goose trail and lots of recreation.

With all this potential, we felt this house was perfect for us. We wanted to be wise first-time home buyers, and I still feel we made an excellent decision. We decided to use the same real estate agent, and we put in an offer after our second viewing. Talk about scary when it’s your first time! But the agent was gentle with us and answered all our first-timer questions. We put in an offer of $438,000 that evening. (The asking price was $449,000.) We had until noon the next day to seal the deal. In the morning the seller countered at $448,000 and added a few things, like curtains and the fridge or something. We were blown away, and quite annoyed. She hadn’t come down much, and didn’t offer much either. We were in fits, back and forth discussing everything. Holy smokes this was stressful! She wasn’t coming down, and we didn’t want to go up much. I think we went up to $443,000 with all the appliances and she was at $447,000. Noon passed and things looked grim. We were babysitting Ty’s niece Sophie that afternoon, and we drove out to the Red Barn for ice cream. I was just sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to lose the house over a few thousand dollars. It seemed so silly. But Ty stood firm, and I’m glad he did. Our agent called in the afternoon with the news that she would forgo $1,000 of her commission and the seller’s buying agent would waive $4,000 so the deal could go through.

So the house was ours! Yah!

Oh, and then three stressful, horrible months of my life began…. I never want to go through that again.

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