So Mary and I have done it, we’re bought our first home. Wow, what a process. It started about a year ago with the whole Sunday routine of “let’s go look at houses” that turned into a year long addiction into seeing the potential goodness of owning your own pad.

We started off looking for mainly condos. The thinking was “I don’t want to maintain the yard…” and “deep down, we’re slugs” and “condos have pools and work out facilities.. that’s cool” we thought.

We found a few condos we really liked. Ones with multiple balconys and ravine laiden lots and more. Sadly the biggest downside to a condo is the HOA fees which can run anywhere from $150 to $450, which is like half the mortgage payment in some places.

We were smitten with Walden Ravines, on Dublin road near the Fishinger area of town. It had everything but it was damn expensive when we added it all up. The total sqaure footage was great though, about 2100.

So what did we want in a new place? Space of course, then stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors, amazing style and paint, basically everything major luxury. Funny considering the place we got in the end is everything opposite of that- an old home.

But that story is coming. We really sorta messed ourselves up at first, and carried on the lie for a long time until it hit a head. We just didn’t think or really deep down do the math on what we could afford. We just started looking. We probably wasted a good 5-6 months of time looking at crap we’d be able to afford comfortably.

Comfort is key. I didn’t want to have a payment that would really hurt or freak me out every month. But getting that number lower and lower made us feel like crap. You stop looking at 270k homes and start looking at 150k homes and you know the feeling.. you are trash for some reason. But the more and more I looked at it, I really liked that 150k home payment vs the 270k home payment. And thats homes we’re talking about, condos at 270k? don’t even think about it with the added HOA fees.

Where did we look? Everywhere. Columbus has sooooooo sooo sooo SOOOOOOOOOOOO much inventory on the market, given the economy and all. We looked everywhere. We had our various advisers as well, get something in Dublin, no Arlington, no Westerville, how about Short North, Downtown.. etc..

For awhile it looked like Hilliard was going to be where we ended up, living in a Cylon town aka the military headquarters. Over the time, looking at some many homes I began rattling off my own language of classications of what we’ve seen while looking at homes.

Cylon city / military HQ = A building complex where all the buildings look the same. Often spaced out in perfect allotments of grass and green. Crammed patio decks where if you stand up tall you can see them infinitely cloned off into the distance. Non-desirable living.

Hell Raiser House = A home where the moment you walk in the front door you have to decide are you going upstairs or downstairs. A hellraiser house/ home is usally sub par in quality, about a 150-165k and usually has a lame yard. A hellraiser house/condo tends to be a strange loft like structure, cramped but looks cool with stuff tucked up into the corners up high above cabinets and doorways, and typically pretty expensive.

Once ya find the place ya love, and we did on a sunday where we had see sooo much and we raced across town to see this one lone home near where we lived already and within the first 5 minutes of the house I was sold.

I don’t know what it is, but when you see the home you want, you just know. Didn’t have all the stainless steel, didn’t have the hardwood, didn’t have all the luxury, and it even had pink rooms!!! But what I saw was huge potential for awesomeness and I saw a home that would sell in heart beat because the people that built it, loved it and it showed. I wanted to be a part of that legacy of the home, and now I got it.