Holy smokes! Has anyone else been looking to move since the pandemic hit?
My husband and I are so happy to live in Fairfield. We enjoyed everything our town has to offer as soon as we unloaded the moving truck. Our early days were filled with library and music classes with our twins and trips to the wonderful (and numerous) town parks, playgrounds, and nearby events. It’s hard to find a problem with Fairfield – you have to really squint.
And the house has served its purpose – a neglected gem with good bones we brought back to life. In just over six years, walls went up, windows were installed, bathrooms were remodeled, doors were upgraded, floors, siding…the list goes on and on. We put in a patio, and a movie-like dreamy white picket fence now surrounds the yard. The dark and dim basement became a cozy playroom.
But very early on in the beginning stages of re-creating a home, we started to realize this wasn’t our ‘forever’ home. But that used to be an easy solution: call a realtor, buy a new house, sell yours. Problem solved.
And then came COVID, and the market has exploded. Houses are selling for 10, 20, even 30% more than they’re potentially worth, and everyone from New York City has seemingly set their sights on our town. We don’t want to leave our town and all it has to offer, but we might have to. That’s not easy to type because we never thought we would.
Once the pandemic set in, we got the itch and almost immediately found a house. We were quickly outbid. It was weird. The house wasn’t perfect. It needed a serious amount of work to get to the next level, but the bones were there, and we could see it. We didn’t want to go to a price that seemed to exceed the house’s true value in its condition.
Now what? More houses came on and went just as quickly. We couldn’t even get a second look at houses. Don’t get me wrong; part of me is proud that our town is sought-after. But now, where does that leave us? With a growing family, we now need more space.
Do we continue to re-do our home and price it out of our neighborhood? Or do we keep trucking along and continue the long journey to find our next home in need of TLC?
To make our current house work for our growing family, bedrooms would have to be shifted, and central air-conditioning would have to be installed on the third floor.
We are torn. We continue to watch the market and see new houses come on, but it’s seemingly hopeless. I’m the emotional one. I want to go one minute and stay the next. We’ve made so many memories here, but I see how it crushed my husband not to have a space of his own. Now with virtual learning, the kids and I have taken up every inch of the house. We need to move. We have, as a team, decided that we need to start looking elsewhere.
As much as it saddens us, I have to remember there are perks! We could live closer to family in a few towns nearby. It’s not all heartbreak, but it is ‘heart-breaking’ to think we got priced out of town by a virus! Things could be worse, much worse, so it’s always important to remember that and decide with our heads and not our hearts.
Stay or leave. That is the question. Wish us luck! We all need a little bit of that right now.
