Let's get this out there right off the top: We bought a house in New Orleans! Yep, it's officially our 3rd home purchase in 5 years thanks to the big move we just made from Indiana. You can call us serial-home-buyers. We don't mind. This home-buying experience was
waaaaaay different than our first two, though. Since I won't be sharing any pictures of the casa yet, I'm including an occasional and completely unrelated picture every so often. Just keepin' things interesting.
:)
Exhibit A. Merpug.
Since we got married, Will and I have had two experiences with the home buying process in Indiana. Home-buying in New Orleans is an entirely different animal. New Orleans is a very old city with very old architecture (part of what we adore so much), a fairly desirable climate (umm, let's not talk about July through September), and tons of culture and excitement that draws people to vacation and even move here. After Katrina caused the population to plummet, only some of the loyal til-death-do-us-part NOLA lovers were able to return. Since then, the city has been building (and building and building) itself back up to be wonderful again (and some argue, even
more wonderful than pre-Katrina). Well, it's looking more fabulous than ever, and
still growing- population included. With the continuing rapid influx of new residents, plus a great number of individuals buying vacation homes, the housing market is booming. Not even booming. Exploding like I always fear the lid of a pressure cooker will fly off into the air and knock my teeth out and break my nose. It. Is. Nuts.
The prices are rising, many of the houses are selling within 24-hours of entering the market, and any decent house at a decent price in a good neighborhood can surely expect a bidding war. One house we saw a couple of months ago had 8 offers in less than 24 hours of being listed. Crazytown.
So when we started our housing search, we didn't have much confidence. Not only did we dread the fight of "winning" a house against other bidders, but we doubted the possibility that we would find something that was just right for us. Homes are very different down here than what we're used to in Indiana, and with the prices as high as they are, we had to get realistic.
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| Jackson Square |
For starters, we've learned with the purchase of our first two homes that location is most important to us. We had our hearts set on a few specific neighborhoods, which limited us in more ways than just location. Most people in these neighborhoods pretty much count on not having a yard (or any outdoor space for that matter). Land isn't cheap in the middle of New Orleans. Same goes for parking. A very small number of people have garages here- I think there may be 2 on our entire block of about 15 houses. And actually, it's not common to have a parking space at all. Street parking is what it's about, folks.
On top of all that, we had to get familiar with the type of architecture down here. The most common types of homes are shotguns and creole cottages. These are basically defined by layout, and are often in the form of "doubles"... essentially a "duplex" for Mid-westerners. Our rental is a shotgun double. We've been lucky enough not to have neighbors in the other half, because the sound-proofing in these homes isn't the finest.
What this really boils down to is that we had high standards considering what's available. Because we really enjoyed our rental, we were willing to wait until the "perfect" place came up. If that even existed.
Here were our standards:
- In one of 4 neighborhoods we favor: the Marigny, Bywater, Uptown, or Irish Channel... with preference on the Marigny/Bywater area, where our rental is located.
- Outdoor space. We can't live without it. Especially with the dogs, we just love to be able to sit outside.
- Between 1000 and 1800 square feet. I think this was one of the standards for our rental, as well. Less than 1000 = me feeling like I'm trapped in a cage with 4 animals and another human. Greater than 1800 = me having no free-time to do anything else besides just clean the thing. Or us just living in a dirty house (much more likely).
- Tall ceilings. This probably sounds sort of snobbish, but I've gotten used to having them. I love a house that feels big, open, and airy, but doesn't have the square footage to clean. Resolution: tall ceilings.
- Hardwood floors (or the ability to add them if the house is priced well). Carpet is the bane of my existence. I feel grimy when I walk on it. It may be dandy for you folks that don't have grubby pig-like canines rubbing their fat bodies on it, but it doesn't work for our family.
- A single-family home. We knew this would be really difficult. We even looked at and considered doubles and condos, but we were crossing our fingers that the right place would come along within our price-range.
It's a pretty tall order for these historic neighborhoods. We saw a lot of places that were good, but not great. There was even one we saw before it went on the market, that we thought may be "the one". When we found out it still required new wiring, additional duct work, and some fairly major structural repairs (
and it was at the top of our budget), we were happy to walk away from that situation- albeit a little more dispirited.
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| Mona Lisa Pizza |
Then it happened. We found "
the one". In typical New Orleans fashion, our lending agent mentioned that she was thinking about selling her house in a few months and invited us in to check it out. We saw it. We fell in love, and hated her for showing it to us, because we were sure it would be out of our price range. We met her for coffee, negotiated a fantastic price through email, and now we're buying her house.
Needless to say, we're ecstatic! I have tons of pictures and moving-chaos to share soon! Have I ever mentioned how much I hate moving? You would never guess with our history. Anywho, stick around for more details... I'll keep you posted
:)
