Happy Weekend my darling friends! I have been so MIA recently and it’s because we are knee deep into house hunting. We have been house hunting for a few months now but I just feel like every time we do, we fall off the ban wagon and give up and then start up again a few months later. Finally this year Arnel and I decided since we will be making Atlanta home for a while then it’s time we gave ourselves a permanent house, so let the Home Search Begin!
The reason I say we finally determined that Atlanta will be home for a while because as many of you know Arnel works in tech and before his job offer last September we were ready to move out of state, yup you heard that correctly. We had actually made the decision that maybe it’s best we move up north or even a coastal town. After Arnel’s job offer last September while we were actually in Paris (crazy timing right) it kind of changed some things, actually a lot of things. Also Tech companies normally run out of large cities like New York, DC, San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin (just to name a few). So location was up in the air but the world had a different plan for us and looks like we will be here for a while which means we need to get serious about house hunting. Arnel’s parents also live in Atlanta and we want Sofia to grow up near her grandparents, at least one set of grand parents. While we would have loved to be close to my parents and Arnel’s parents, it’s just not in our cards right now.
If you are from Atlanta you know that Atlanta and it’s metro areas are kind of tricky, it’s a hard place to find a home. Let me explain. Atlanta is huge, it houses more than 5 million people and is the 9th most populated city. It’s traffic is horrendous and it can get tiring to say the least. It’s public transit system sucks and people just keep moving here especially Hollywood, why you ask? Well it’s cheaper to film here than LA, it also means that celebrities are buying homes here making prices of homes sky rocket. Schools also make houses sky rocket and being close to the major job spots like Midtown, Sandy Springs, Buckhead and Alpharetta, which are all great areas, close to the highway and close to work. So here we are thinking gosh do how much money do we spend on a house, do we want to spend hours in traffic, NO. Do lots of families do, yes they do, they spend majority of the day in traffic, so do people in LA and other major cities but it doesn’t make it easy.
Next thing is neighborhoods, most suburban neighborhoods have HOA fees, gosh HOA’s will be the death of me. Who came up with that idea in the first place. Yes I know HOA keep your neighbors in check and I understand some neighborhoods have HOAs but they are more lenient and some are so strict it’s nuts. Some HOAs around here are so nuts that you have to file a request to paint your house, paint your FRONT DOOR, what tree you can plant in the front yard, what flowers you can have. I am sorry but that’s not okay with us, so you want me to INVEST in a house, a house that I own but I can’t decide what color my front door is because my next door neighbor and I will have the same door. No Ma’am, over my dead body, maybe we are crazy but that doesn’t work for us. It’s the part of me that hates authority and hates being told what to do. So finding a neighborhood that doesn’t have crazy restrictions is hard, you are limited with the neighborhoods that have that type of freedom, at least in the areas we are looking at. Also the neighborhoods are so cookie cutter, mass production, nothing unique, I am a creator so is Arnel, we love character we like interesting and I feel like all of our hopes for that get washed away.
Schools– We want Sofia to attend public school, growing up I attended public schools and so did Arnel and we want Sofia to have the same experience. Out standing school districts are very important to us! While I know those things can change, it takes a while for a school system to go from a 10 to a 0 in the matter of a few years.
Work– We also want Arnel to be close to work, while I am more flexible with work because I work half days and pretty much avoid all peak hours of traffic Arnel on the other hand work’s regular business hours and often gets stuck in traffic.
Back Yards– With the mass production of neighborhoods and cookie cutter homes it leaves you with a very small yard and maybe that doesn’t bother other people but I grew up with a large yard and spent lots of evenings out doors having dinner with the family and had lots of privacy. I also find that the homes are so close together that I feel like the neighbor and I can lock eyes while in the bathroom and that’s just a wee bit uncomfortable for me. That doesn’t mean we hate neighbors we love neighbors but we prefer our privacy and I want to walk out on the patio or deck in my short pajama shorts without feeling uncomfortable.
Newly Renovated– My favorite term recently, is everyone trying to be the next Chip and Joanna Gaines and land a hit HGTV show, if so the ones here in Atlanta are doing a pretty horrible job, sorry if you flip houses but geeze. We saw a recent flip a few weeks ago, I kid you not they left a shower next to the garage from 1970 but built a half bath 2 feet away. Sounds absurd, yea it was, like what did he want me to do with a shower in a hallway near the garage. The second one was a “newly renovated” where the floors in the living room, on the stairs and bedrooms were all different shades, did he think I wouldn’t notice or did he just run out of the wood he purchased (bad move). If you saw my stories the other day you might have seen the other flip I showed you where the guy did hardwood stairs on the first 3-4 steps and left the carpet on the other ones. I am all about mixing and matching but I will definitely never tour that home. Details matter which has made us conclude that newly renovated homes are not an option, I rather see the 1970s style and know I can gut and renovate with my choice of finishes.
Custom Building– We have thought a lot about building as well but so many available lots have been purchased by investors and transformed into subdivisions that still require a specific look of the house and very few allow you to have your own builder, with your own floor plan and look and feel of the house. The land that is available, it’s available in a specific location or area that we would love to build in, but the land is expensive, I mean very very very expensive, what some might spend on a home that’s what price points we are talking about and at this point it’s like searching a needle in a hay stack. while yes you will get 2-3 acres it’s still a lot to invest in JUST land and then invest in building a house from scratch. Which leads me to talk about builders, contractors and the shenanigans behind that. It’s in a league on it’s own, it’s not easy going that route because the cost of labor and contractors is just through the roof, so what do we do? Well if you have built let me know what and how you did it. Also please note there are a few variations of custom building, one being in a neighborhood where you buy a lot/land and that lot has their own builder with a few exterior options and floor plans, and we would really not prefer that because that’s where we learned our lesson a few months ago when we inquired about a neighborhood that had very large lots/land but the price they showed and then the price that we received at the end of picking our finishes was legit a 200k difference. In which at that point when I reviewed the prices of their basic tiles and stuff, I learned that they triple charge for things that can be found much cheaper.
So that’s where we are with the home search, you guys ask us all the time why it’s taking forever and honestly with the list of things Arnel and I want, we aren’t willing to settle, not because we are perfectionists of any kind but because it’s a huge investment and with anything in life we just aren’t willing to throw away money on a home that isn’t meeting our wants and needs.
So that’s our update and I wish I had more to share other than we are still out there hunting, but love to hear from all of you who had bought land and built and whether you would do it again or you regret every minute of it and what was the hardest part and what advice you have to give us.
Thanks for being here supporting us through all the transitions in our life, we love you and can’t thank you enough. Now can we all say a prayer that Lejla and Arnel finally find something.
xoxo
Hasanovic Family