House Hunters Irrational

Blind people watching House Hunters must think we have a real housing crisis on our hands.  I don’t know what else you possibly could think if you just heard someone walk into a move-in-ready, $550,000 home and say something like, “well this all has to be ripped out and updated.”  Ripped out and updated?  At $550,000?  Boy, a dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to in the housing market.

Sometimes, I wish I actually was blind watching House Hunters.  It would almost be more peaceful not to know that the kitchens and bathrooms that half of these couples consider “taking on” as “projects” already look better than mine.  I’d really rather not see that the walk-in closet that’s “just too small” is actually bigger than the largest bedroom in our house or that the countertops they plan to rip out are actually far newer than the ones in our kitchen, which we considered updated when we moved in.  I’d prefer to just assume that the place is a half-million-dollar tin-roofed shack that’s exactly as unlivable as these people make it sound.

I’ve seen couples walk into perfectly ready-to-use spaces, roll their eyes and say (as if it’s obvious to anyone watching), “well this will all have to be updated.”  And all I can think is: “Can I have your appliances and maybe your bathroom fixtures then?”  I recently saw a woman on the show refuse an entire home just because the kitchen wasn’t white.  I mean, honestly – paint does exist.  One man based his whole house hunt on the presence of a built-in coffee bar.  Another couple nixed a house based on the size and location of the kitchen island.

If it’s not the complaints, it’s the demands: vaulted ceilings, arched windows, built-in pools, front-porch columns, and showers that are twice the size of my college dorm room.  It’s as if tray ceilings and wainscoting are generally accepted as a necessity these days.  Rosie and I sit in The Cottage watching and say to each other, “We didn’t know we could ask for all this when we were looking!”  And if we had known, our house hunt would have been a lot different…we might have even gotten a parking pad!

When Rosie and I first started our rental search back in 2012, our wishlist was basically just bare necessities – like two bedrooms and a clean bathroom – with a few “well that would be nice” things thrown in, like a porch or in-unit laundry.  But even these were sometimes compromised to fit the budget.  If the place was affordable, still standing, and located anywhere near our target neighborhood, we’d show up.  We didn’t say no to looking at tiny living spaces, shared bedrooms, or places that hadn’t been updated since 1976.  We looked at a house on a creepy road we dubbed “The Murder Street” and one with a chain-smoking roommate and a stove that both looked like they might self-ignite at any moment.  Turns out when you request bare minimum, you get even less.

Don’t get me wrong, the house that we eventually found is completely perfect for Rosie and me.  It has two bedrooms, a clean and functional bathroom, two porches, an understanding landlord, in-unit laundry, vintage charm, and it’s in the perfect neighborhood.  We don’t have to take care of our own yard, unless we want to, and there is a ton of basement storage.  But we do occasionally wonder…what if we’d been one of those couples (not that we’re a couple) on House Hunters?  What would our wishlist have looked like if we’d been searching for the big house on the $600,000 budget?

Well we certainly would have sprung for a place with a non-leaking back porch roof so we could sit out and enjoy the summer rains.  We might have asked for two bathroom sinks and a finished basement – or at least one where ivy doesn’t grow through the window and wolf spiders aren’t staked out in every corner.  Maybe we’d have looked for a place without a summer ant infestation or a chronically clogged shower drain or alley cats that poop in our garden.  And we probably would have asked for an updated dishwasher – or at least one that doesn’t smell funny on occasion – and, of course, a parking pad…maybe even two!

On second thought, it’s probably best that we weren’t given carte blanche.  Clearly, we would have blown the budget on that back porch roof.