As with every blog I’ve ever started, I’ve come to completely ignore this one’s existence. Originally started as a portfolio to house my professional work in the ever-growing effort to find a job after an unceremonious dismissal, I suppose this page had served it’s purpose. The goal was to house my professional and hope-to-be-professional work as a bolster to any resume I would offer off into the abyss. It worked, I’ve been at my current job for just under 16 months at this very moment. Funny that it’s been ten months since I’ve posted, hell the last time I logged into this page was to stop the auto-renew payment in an effort to cut financial burdens. More on that later but this always happens, especially to me. I am fickle by nature, easy to start, hard to commit and here I am spouting off like anyone besides myself would read this. But that’s the hope of a blog right? That someone, somewhere in the vast network of the web will see this and obtain some sort of emotional response. I suppose every post I decide to scrap or post here starts with the single primal desire to elicit a response. To help some stranger, somewhere with something. What started as a place to showcase my talent as a writer turned into a boy tossing stones into the ocean, write about those things your passionate about. Hockey, video games, helping others. Again this place has served it’s purpose, as the very first post on this blog was able to net me a job writing about the Philadelphia Flyers. That lasted about six months before I realized that my passion for writing wasn’t enough to overcome the lack of any actual income. The income wasn’t zero but it might as well have been. Funny how we are forced to compromise, at least in some capacity, but I chock it up to survival instincts.

In regards to financial burdens as mentioned above. My fiancé and I are 30-ish days away from closing on our first home. A beautiful row home built in the early 1900’s that as it stands is roughly five times larger than our current wares. And of course I wasn’t able to pay for it without help. I’m a millennial, someone who has had privileges’ others have not, and is still struggling with the ability to handle such a monumental purchase. I’ve been saving for what feels like 12 years and it will just disappear in the name of equity and investments and all of this. Now I don’t expect sympathy here, I just need to speak to how useless and helpless I’ve felt in this purchase. I imagine most millennials will feel similar once we all find an opportunity to purchase a home. I mean it is fucking grim out there, CNN, Investopedia, Buzzfeed, are all on the same page. Our age group is fucked and there doesn’t seem to be a near future of us being un-fucked. Buying a house forced me to do several things I was not comfortable with in any way, and not a single thing was a “help me grow as a person”. Every decision felt like trying to change footholds or hand grips whilst free climbing The Wall in Game of Thrones. I am a pretty shrimp-y guy if that helps you grasp the metaphor a tad better. Oh and every piece of brevity or laughable candor I put in here, even this sentence, is surely a coping mechanism for how tough it is for me to just spout off about this.

I don’t have any debt, I’m lucky. I went to a state school that was relatively cheap and I have incredibly generous parents that in December of 2016, three years after graduating, paid off my remaining balance. At the same time they paid off both of my siblings remaining loans as well, and we are all still reeling from the unbridled generosity five years later. I lived in an absolute shithole apartment above a bar in Philadelphia for a few years with a roommate. I worked two jobs at that time too. I gained two new roommates once I upgraded from that place before residing where I am now. A 450 square foot studio that I split with my fiancé. Just setting the scene for you, as I have never once lived above my means, and have been focusing on saving, and saving, and saving for just over a decade. Let me tell you, it wasn’t Even. Fucking. Enough. I have never lived alone, not that it is ever necessary, in the futile effort of being able to save enough to buy a home. Go to college, get a job, buy home, and pop out two and half kids, we’ve been sold on this idea our entire lives. The crushing realization that even as well prepared as I am or was just isn’t enough is… heavy. And I’m not even close to the most prepared or least prepared person that I know. I just think that with this pandemic and the wealth disparity in-between generations is hard to deal with. And if I hear bootstraps one more time I’m going to blow my brains out because it just isn’t feasible in the modern economy we have right now. I am aware that I’m ranting, please let me breath and focus on how stupid the housing market and home-buying process is.

If you’ve ever experienced the bliss that is looking at beautiful homes that you can never afford on Zillow or Realtor.com then this section is for you. How many people do you know fawn over the gorgeous living space featured on major listing websites. At this point, it’s pretty much everyone I know. Let me tell you that the joy stops directly after sending in a request for a showing. Anxiety, fear, excitement, crushing realizations, and the absolute gauntlet of speaking to strangers on the phone will now manifest inside you in ways you thought not possible. My fiancé and I were lucky enough to be placed with a brilliant realtor but even he could not prevent that absolute rollercoaster of emotions when it comes to seeing houses. In total, over a three month span, we saw over 25 houses and made three offers. Keep in mind we could only see homes on weekends and often had to see five to six a day to even have a chance of settling. The first offer we put in was beaten by a full cash offer, 55 thousand over asking. The second offer put in was beaten by a half cash offer, 85 thousand over asking. And honestly I contribute our accepted offer to sheer dumb luck because we offered six thousand over asking with 20% down, with only a couple competing offers. This should be considered an anomaly as every other home we saw or planned to see had multiple offers the first day of showings.

I don’t even want to speak about the home that had 20 plus offers. But going to see houses, even with the love of my life supporting me, was tiresome and overwhelming. I found myself dipping in and out of excitement and panic. Hopelessness and doubt. Very rarely did I feel anything positive after a day of showings. You walk into home and begin to place yourself there. My office could be here, our future dog would love this yard, I can see my family sitting at the dinner table. But as you further yourself through the home, your realtor a buzz with facts and insights, the weight of the others creeps into the peripherals of your mind. Or sometimes quite literally in your actual peripheral vision as they wait in the front yard for your 30 minute visit to a lifechanging decision. God, every part of the homebuying process feels so staggering, so insurmountably heavy, that every footfall you make through the kitchen, the bedrooms, or the closets feels like trudging the Alps. I don’t know how anyone my age can enjoy doing this. Even now as I am looking through homeowner’s insurance, and a home warranty, I find myself wavering between excitement and the crushing discussion I must have with myself.. is this the right decision? Do I want this house, do I want to live in this neighborhood, can I afford this? And I wish I had the answers but every waking moment they seem to dance in the void between yes and no. Between please someone lift me from the sea, and as captain I will go down with my ship.

We had to waive inspection. We have to pay the selling realtor’s commission. We had to cover a possible appraisal difference. I had to borrow money from my parents, just to cover closing costs. By the way, closing costs are bullshit. If you’re thinking about buying a home, budget right now an extra ten thousand to cover closing costs. No, I’m serious, right now, pull up an Excel doc and type in closing costs budget, minimum ten thousand. Not a single person during the homebuying process told me about closing costs or how much they would be until we put our first offer in. Which we then had to quickly amend because 20% down plus closing costs, we couldn’t afford in the slightest. We amended the offer to 15%, which now includes Mortgage Insurance, yea that’s right more fees, good job on being poor. And even then we barely had enough to make it work. We obviously lost on that offer to someone who was able to offer 80 thousand over asking. Isn’t real estate fun? It’s like a game of poker except you have no idea what others are allowed to bring to the table. Did your pocket aces really expect to beat the guy who brought a straight flush, oh what’s that he has a second hand with a full house? Good luck.

We haven’t even closed yet. Which is honestly torturing my mental as I still cannot fathom this process going smoothly. There is always a part of me saying it will fall through, you will lose your good faith payment, you will ruin your financial viability for the rest of your life. You will not get this home. All of this is completely and utterly paralyzing. Such a large decision, a life-changing decision boils down to a phone call and a few signed papers. Every forced movement and action feels unnegotiable, you must do this or fear losing your chance at this home. I didn’t mention before but we had showings cancelled the day we made them as other buyers had already made offers for the seller to considered. That happened, I’d say, ten plus times. A house goes on the market in the morning and goes to bed the same day with five offers, two of which are full cash. This market, or maybe the real estate market as a whole is cut throat, and I was wholly unprepared for it. As I imagine most people are but you don’t really know until you schedule your first showing, until you feel that first unescapable loss as what you thought was your dream home goes for a price you can’t even pretend to have. I just can’t imagine the pain, the tribulations, the hardships my fellow generation will experience as they try, and I mean TRY, to get into the market.

I keep trying to remind myself how lucky I am, even with the weight of all this. I am blessed to have my family, my friends, and my fiancé to support me in this endeavor. Truly an endeavor with lifechanging consequences. I honestly just wanted to give insight to others that I wish I had, and if this rant comes off as tone deaf to others who are struggling financially I am sorry. My intention was only to deliver my experience with the aim to shed some light on what I feel is an untenable jungle. Even with the help of a five star realtor, and some financial flexibility I still felt crushed under the weight of it all. I imagine the weight will sit here, in my heart and on the inner left side of my head, until some time in the future. Maybe after closing day or ten years from now, I just hope that sometime it will leave me, and I can learn to understand what the gravity of real life feels like. But here I am, and I am going to carry that weight for what feels like forever.

I would honestly love some feedback from anyone looking to buy a home, have a home, whatever. I know everyone is experiencing life’s great pursuits differently and if anything new perspectives can help shape my own. This whole process pushed my fiancé and I to the brink of some very real fights, there is a lot of baggage to buying a home and you will feel the weight of it. Just remember that this is part of the future your building, so someday it will be worth it. And to all those looking to buy a house themselves, without a partner or roommate or what-have-you, I wish you all of the luck in the world. I can’t pretend to bear this alone, so I do wish you the best, you will need it.

Hypothetical Post Script

This entire rant manifested from a walk I took the other day. With the weather being so nice, and in an attempt to lose the weight I gained during COVID, I get out and exercise each day. Gives me time to breathe, to reflect, to maintain the shreds of my mental health. I honestly think the real estate process will change as millennials continue to find ways to put themselves into the ring. All of it feels so impersonal, so hopeless that I think my generation won’t stand for it. How and when this will happen I have naught a clue, but it will happen. I hope that no one feels forced to buy a house they didn’t have time to go see in person. I hope that waiving inspections becomes illegal or at least vilified in the public eye so it doesn’t have to happen. I hope the homebuying process can feel more like a lifechanging decision that you are given the time, space and opportunity to acknowledge instead of the silent auction that it is today. As always, I wish you good fortune.