Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Home Buying







I am 62 years old. We are five months into the global coronavirus pandemic. Life is different in almost every way imaginable. We don’t travel. We don’t take airplanes. We stay at home. We shelter in place. Until this, I didn’t even know the government could order us to shelter in place, let alone for months at a time. It’s nerve-wracking and anxiety provoking and socially isolating. We think we had the virus in March, but we’re not certain. We both ended up on inhalers for a time. I still use mine sometimes. Initially, we were excited by the idea that we might be immune. Now, it seems it may be possible to get it again. This virus is evil. It’s very good at what it does.

In addition to selling real estate, I help out with my granddaughter whileLucy and her husband work. Childcare is tedious and boring and relentless and also incredibly rewarding. If I hadn’t been one of Lila’s main care givers, I probably wouldn’t have seen her very much. Instead, I saw her all the time. We bonded like crazy. When she was a baby we went with Mommy when she travelled for work. We went to London once and New York three times. Lila practiced crawling at the Gramercy Park Hotel. She spent her first three years, nine months in art galleries and museums and zoos. She started pre-school and was beginning to have a social life. She thrived on living in the city and loved culture and stimulation.

 

When COVID-19 forced employees to work from home Lucy, Greg, Lila and 6 month- old Finn fled San Francisco. They began to shelter in place in Tahoe in March. Lucy was still on maternity leave, but her return to work deadline was looming. We sat at home in Mill Valley doing jigsaw puzzles, reading and fretting. We watched far too much political news. We drank too much wine. We ate like we were on a cruise ship. At the end of every meal we thought about the next meal. We were nervous about going out to the store. I quarantined the mail when it arrived at the house. We missed seeing Finn and Lila and our other grandkids, Sally and Leo.

 

Lucy and Greg were planning to return to San Francisco when Lucy started her new job at Instagram. They had no childcare in Tahoe. They really didn’t want to go back to the city. Everything was closed, including pre-school. Finally, it was decided that we would join them in the mountains and take care of the kids while Lucy and Greg worked. Their house wasn’t big enough for Eric and me, two kids, a dog and two parents working from home. We rented a friend’s cabin. It was rustic, but comfortable. When the snow melted the chipmunks moved into the walls, but it was a short walk to the lake. We stayed there for seven weeks. Lila said it had“scary stairs”, but we had everything we needed, and we were fortunate to be able to land there. The lilacs bloomed and then were snowed upon. Spring comes late to Tahoe and it’s subtle. It was a shock to leave my glorious Mill Valley garden with the profusion of roses. There were three colors in Tahoe; green, brown and blue. That’s all.

 

Luckily for the kids and grandkids, childcare is one of my super-powers. I’ve been caring for kids for fifty years. I began babysitting when I was twelve. I was a live-in nanny at the age of fifteen, taking care of Baby Ben while living at the Gate Hill Coop (aka The Land). I moved from New York to Hollywood at seventeen and was Beck and Chan’s nanny for two years. Later I had a licensed home daycare, caring for numerous kids, including my nephew, Zach. When I got a BA, my degree was in Developmental Psych. I worked in a kindergarten classroom for three years. I raised my own three daughters, which was considerably more difficult than taking care of other people’s children. That was an ongoing surprise to me. It’s a lot easier to shape young minds when you don’t live with them.


It was a Thursday in late May when Lucy suggested it would be nice if we had a house in their neighborhood. She proposed that we could go in on a property together and to let her know if I saw anything I liked. The time was approximately 6:00 pm. Friday morning I woke up and checked realtor.com for listings in Carnelian Bay. I hadn’t joined Tahoe Sierra MLS yet, so my access was the same as every other non-realtor.

 

I saw a new listing that looked promising. By 10:30 am we were sitting in the driveway on the phone with the agent. By 11:00 we were inside the property with Lucy looking around. The house was perfect. Beautiful and well-maintained and a short distance from the kids and grandkids. Five minutes to the lake. By 1:00 pm we decided to write an offer and sent it over to the agent. We asked for a response by 5:00 pm the next day, which was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday there were several conversations with the agent who was hesitant to accept our offer because we didn’t have a pre-approval letter yet. We weren’t expecting to find a house so quickly, so we did not have our ducks in a row, which is such a rookie mistake. I bullied the agent a bit and talked about how qualified we were and that we were the right buyers for the property. We had included a love letter to the Seller. It was a full price offer! By 5:15 pm the Seller had signed our offer and we were in contract. Boom! That’s the way you buy a house.

 

I did reach out to several mortgage brokers that day and got a response from someone I had used for clients in the past. She called me and I explained the situation. She agreed to send a pre-approval letter and follow up with the details later. It helps to have relationships in the business. We were able to send the pre-approval letter over a few minutes after the agent sent me the signed contract, so it gave them peace of mind. The inspections were a breeze, all went smoothly, and we closed in less than 30 days despite the pandemic.

 

I have watched this process so many times with clients, but honestly, I had no idea it was so stressful! Even though I was the agent, representing us as buyers, I was a nervous wreck. I pushed the process along every step of the way, which is what you have to do. It wasa bit of a stretch for us to close early, but it was totally doable. The final week before close we were staying in a hotel and our dog was staying at Lucy and Greg’s. We had been in some sort of limbo for over two months and were really ready to be settled. To close on a Friday instead of the following Tuesday or Wednesday was significant.


The timeline got a little tight at the end. A miscommunication between my insurance agent and the mortgage broker needlessly lost us a day. Everything was a scramble after that. We actually signed the loan docs the morning of the close of escrow, still not knowing whether we would go on record and be able to move in that Friday. In twenty years in the business I have never had buyers sign, fund and go on record all in one day, but it worked out. At 4:00 pm we got an email from the title company that the sale was recorded. We bought the house fully furnished, so by 5:00 pm we were moved in.





If we hadn’t jumped on this house that very day we would probably still be looking and living in a rental. The market changed right then. Work from home and urban flight has created such demand. The house right behind us went on the market, got eleven offers and 
went $150,000 over asking. We were not prepared to compete with that.
 
There are some disadvantages to living in the mountains. No newspaper delivery. We miss the Sunday New York Times. I don’t like to read the papers online. I’m on my computer enough. Hell, I would even read the local paper, but they don’t deliver that, either. Also, we don’t get mail. Our Mill Valley house is rented so we had the mail forwarded to Allie’s place which is about half a mile from our home. You may have heard about USPS and how slow they are. It’s ridiculous. Then Allie has to gather the mail and ship it to me via Fed Ex or UPS. It’s a slow process. The next time we are here for an extended period we’ll have to get a PO Box, assuming postal service still exists.

 

Deliveries are another challenge. Amazon does not deliver here, which is fine with me because I don’t like supporting Jeff Bezos, richest man in the world who does not pay taxes. Target may or may not be able to accomplish getting a product from Point A to Point B. It’s kind of hit or miss. The most recent order was most definitely NOT delivered. I went on the website and got a refund for all the items. Shortly thereafter, I got an email from Target. “Your package has been delivered!” Well, actually it hadn’t. And you already cancelled the order and refunded my money.

 

Bed, Bath and Beyond has been great. Same with Wayfair and Home Depot. I’m still waiting for my contact lenses and two dresses that I ordered from China on June 4th. We have friends nearby who do not exist on any map. They can’t get deliveries at all and have to have their packages sent to Lucy’s. It’s the Wild West in some ways.









This is a summer house for me. I haven’t had a real summer since I left New York in 1975, and I’ve loved every bit of it. Every single morning the sky is blue, and the sun is shining. There is no fog. I get up and put on a bathing suit. Most days I take a swim in the lake. I’m a fair-weather gal. I like to visit places with snow, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I’ll be out of here before the first snow falls.




We’ve been helping Lila ride a bike. She is still using training wheels, but she is confident and strong and sure. The steering and balance will follow. She only just turned four. She’s been learning to swim in the lake, and I’ve taken her out in the canoe. We played in the Truckee River and Lila rode a horse. We do whatever we can given Finn’s baby schedule. We paint and draw and listen to music. Then there is rest time. It’s camp. I never went to camp. Now I have a camp: Base Camp Gigi.



































2 comments:

  1. FYI Amazon does deliver here.... I have had to support the Bezos empire to get office supplies. Also Chewy.com is awesome and they deliver really quickly. Glad you're here!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarah - for some reason this comment just showed up! I do try to avoid the evil empire, but it's not always possible. We do what we can!

    ReplyDelete