The House I'm Not Buying

We’ve lived in this rental house since March, 2009. It is a modest little thing, built in 1942 for the Kaiser Shipyard workers. It has two bedrooms and one bathroom, and the basement has been finished to include a family area and a non-conforming third bedroom. The subdivision is called Telocaset (or Telocaset Heights) and it was one of Vancouver’s first planned neighborhoods, designed by Donald Stewart. When you stroll the streets, you quickly recognize that there are only a limited number of floorplans.

When the owner of the house defaulted on his contract for deed in 2011, I talked briefly to our new landlord about buying the house. He was not unwilling, but wanted to wait until the market rebounded—at that time the values were still dropping. I also wasn’t really in any position to buy. I had student loan disbursements and some inheritance, but no earned income. And my credit wasn’t great.

Four years later, I have an excellent stable job and decent credit. I met with a home loan officer from a local credit union to look into my mortgage worthiness and he thought it looked promising, so we made an appointment with the landlord and his wife to talk about buying the house.

I also started dreaming about wall-hung bathroom sinks, marmoleum, and vintage light fixtures. To the point of distraction. I even created Pinterest boards.

At the meeting, the owner agreed to sell and requested that I get a letter of approval from a bank. He told me that he would use that information to determine a price and interest rate for the house—because he would carry the contract, just as he had done for the guy we originally rented from (yes, the one that defaulted).

I felt totally left out of the discussion. There was no negotiation, no "if that works for you." And this isn't the first time this landlord has talked at me, not with me. He’s a classic mansplainer, infuriating, but probably common for older, white men with financial privilege. And he calls me “kiddo.” Which. I. Can’t. Abide.

(Here's an example of his not taking my desires into consideration: even though I had expressed interest in buying the house a few years prior, and he had mentioned it as a possibility several times since, when he arranged to have the exterior painted he didn’t consult me except to clear the date. The only reason I knew the new color before I came home from work that day was because I had asked. And, no, primer gray is not the color I would have chosen.)

This was actually the first time that Harry had met the landlord. By design. And it only happened because the landlord insisted. It went about as well as I had imagined—which is not well at all. (See the paragraph above where I all but call the landlord a dick.) But it did make us really think about the house, particularly whether or not we wanted to be legally bound to this guy for years to come.

For all of the things I love about this house, there are others that I don’t. Sometimes they are the same things.

• Two living spaces, but one is in the basement.
• Oak floors, but they need refinishing at the least, possibly some repair.
• Plenty of windows for light, but about half of them don’t open.
• Original wood kitchen cabinets, but they are narrow and cramped.
• Cooking with gas, but the range needs to be replaced.
• Perfect sized backyard, but there’s also a “back backyard” which we never use.
• Huge, old maple tree in front, but we worry that a serious storm will bring it down.
• Peaceful neighborhood, but at least a 45 minute commute to my job.

This house was in a great location when the kids attended our district’s arts magnet school and I worked at Fort Vancouver, but the kids have graduated and I now work in East Multnomah County. Add in the worry that prices in our specific, sought-after area have already rebounded to the point where I might not be able to afford to buy, and I realized that this is not our forever home.

Followed by the realization that I'm ready to find the one that is.