I can’t believe we’re finally in a week where no major snow storms are predicted for our area. You’d think after growing up in Buffalo, and then living in Boston for most of my adult life, I’d be used to all this snow. NOPE.
I know I should count my blessings. There are many people living in Boston who have been hit much harder by these storms. Our public transit system is still not back to normal and may not be for days or weeks!
But it does get me thinking about wanting to move.
I actually don’t mean moving to Florida or California or Hawaii. I just mean moving to our own house.
I love our current apartment. The landlords are great, with adorable kids, and they’ve been really accommodating during this storm. During the first Blizzard (Juno) they even helped me dig out my car, then moved my car into their driveway (where they’ve been letting us keep one of our cars overnight since the snow emergency went in place February 2nd) and that day they even invited me up for some tasty soup and a movie! They’re good people.
And I love our location: close enough to public transit and good restaurants but also pretty close to the highway so we can hop on the highway easily for our daily commutes or a trip up to Vermont.
But one of the issues that has made me a little bit crazy is the winter parking situation. I’ve been dreaming of a place with a garage. And even with a driveway, as long as we got a snowblower. I know this makes me sound spoiled, but one of the things that makes me stress out beyond having to shovel out my car after a storm is worrying about if there will still be a spot available when I come back from work or the grocery store or visiting a friend. There’s plenty of argument around whether or not space savers should be used (and in many cities, they’re technically illegal). With a parking ban which was in effect for 3 weeks (which means we couldn’t actually park on the street in front of our house, or on the odd side of the side streets), there’s mathematically not enough space for every car that needs to park. So any time I left, I worried I’ll come back and have nowhere to park my car.
Phew. See, it’s this tiny issue that makes me go from calm and collected to raving mad. Again, I realize how lucky I am otherwise (at least I have a car that I need to park!), but it just stresses me out!
So. I’d love to buy a house somewhere, in part, so I can have a garage. It’s not the only reason, of course. After we got married, we’ve been thinking more about those “next steps” (having kids, buying a house, etc. etc.) So, we’ve started scanning Zillow for potential houses. Of course, within this search is trying to figure out WHERE to move to. Like I said, we like our current location for convenience to all sorts of things. But buying a house much closer to work (~20 miles from our current location) would be convenient, especially if we’re thinking ahead to kids (preschool, school, etc.). But moving away from our current area means moving away from most of our friends, including quite a few who are car-less. I have faith they’d manage the public transit or Zipcar option, but I worry we’d see a lot less of them. Then again, they say when you have kids, you don’t see much of friends anyway, so maybe that’s where we’re headed?
Beyond location, my husband and I have to start thinking about what we want in a house. We know we want a back yard (and of course, that coveted garage!) but how many rooms? What style? A move-in-ready house or one that requires lots of work and upgrades?
I think our next steps, if we decide we want to start seriously considering buying a house, is to get pre-approved for a mortgage. We’ve both been saving up money for ages for a down payment, so hopefully we’ll have enough to buy something when we do start looking!
How has the winter storm impacted you?
p.s. special thanks to Anne and Alison for their tweets that got me started on this blog post!
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