Professor Lynch thought my in class presentation was so interesting, he voted for a round two. Almost exactly a year ago to the date, I bought my first home. After the honeymoon year, I think it is only fitting to reflect on the process; as well as pay homage to the lessons I have learned through home ownership.
The best way to begin the story of my journey is to describe the events, which took place during September of 2008 through May of 2009. I had been living in a home in Rowland Heights, owned by a friend’s parents. I lived that the home with my boyfriend, my best friend, and another roommate who turned out to be a complete psychopath. In a nutshell, during the time period described above, I had thousands of dollars stolen from me, learned a lot about California landlord/tenant laws, broke up and made up with my boyfriend countless times, went through a long process to evict the roommate from hell, and found out that after all the turmoil that the owners were selling the house we lived in and I had thirty days to pack and leave.
Thirty days is not a long period of time, especially during the final weeks of a spring quarter. After much debate, my boyfriend moved into an apartment in Fullerton with a friend, my best friend moved back to Temecula with her parents, and I moved back home to Yorba Linda until we could regroup and figure out what the next step would be for our living situations.
Spending more time with my parents, after a tumultuous high school life with them, was a blessing in disguise. We came up with a plan to purchase a home together, to start the new Landfield machine, a company built out of a family to cement a prosperous future through real estate. We started looking at homes immediately. The search began with a bang, we spent an evening every week touring homes with our amazing and supportive realtor. It was fun at first, but the constant barrage of non-livable homes was hard to stay positive for.
It is hard to describe the types of homes that we viewed. I could have sworn some of the properties had to have been previously used as drug houses, brothels, and hideaways for illegal aliens. So many homes that could have been beautiful single-family dwellings had been changed into unusual and frightening new structures that I would not feel comfortable in. The previous owners had added on strange rooms that seemed endless. I have seen two bedroom homes that had been turned into 7 bedroom homes, on 2100 square feet.
Finally, we stumbled upon some properties that were worth making offers on, and we started the process and paperwork too begin our ownership. This was a whole separate process and was equally nightmarish in comparison to the selection of homes to make the offers on.
I’ll take to my next blog to illustrate the next part in the route to my ownership status.
dibs!
ReplyDeleteI love the story this blog conveys and I'm sorry you went through so much hell in your quest to live comfortably! Everything I didn;t comment on, I loved. That being said, I have some minor criticisms below. I can't wait to see your next post!
ReplyDeleteIs the semicolon at the beginning necessary? A comma works just as well.
" I lived that the home with my boyfriend, my best friend, and another roommate who turned out to be a complete psychopath." Good sentence, but could it be written better at the beginning?
The sentence that follows it is rather lengthy as well and it would look better if you divided the separate thoughts.
You seem to be rather fond of commas especially when expressing multiple ideas in one sentence. These points could be stated more eloquently if you gave them their own sentences. It may help them look more coherent and less jumbled together. Don't worry, I tend to write the same way!
"The search began with a bang, we spent an evening every week touring homes with our amazing and supportive realtor." If you're going to keep them together, use a semicolon.
In the next sentence, don't end with a preposition. Common mistake.