"House Hunters" = The Real America

We are addicted to HGTV’s show House Hunters. We started watching HGTV after we bought the house, and House Hunters quickly became our favorite show. If you don’t know it, it’s a reality show where people are shown three different houses and they have to buy one by the end of the episode.

You learn about their lives, why they are moving, what they are looking for in a new home and what their budget is. It is a lot of fun, and extremely addictive. We have 15 episodes in our DVR right now, and we tape four a day (we get a lot of repeats).

The best part, of course, is when the buyers must make their selection. We find ourselves yelling at the TV, “number one, number one…are they nuts???” And, “well, number two did have the hardwood floors she wanted, but not the finished basement he was hoping for. They should go with number three.” Inevitably, people make their choices based on budget, but sometimes there are surprises and decisions are made based on location, yard size, dog-friendly condos, etc. These are the most satisfying episodes.

One of the things we love about the show is its diversity of buyers and locations: House Hunters features married couples, gay couples, single-moms, single-dads, young people, old people, white people, black people, Asian people, Latinos…pretty much everyone. Budgets range from $100,000 to $2,000,000. And the locations are from all corners of the US: from New York to Portland, from the deep south to the Rockies, from a hippie community in Sante Fe to the oil-rich suburbs of Dallas.

Recently we noticed something: all of the buyers on the show want the same thing (in addition to more closet space): they want to raise their kids, wake up next to someone they love, carve out a little piece of the world for themselves and maybe leave a little something behind for those who come next.

From the gay couple in Boston buying their first home together with their two dogs and two cats to the military family in North Carolina looking for that perfect three-bedroom house in anticipation of new addition to their family, everyone is pretty much the same. And they all say the same things.

Which got me thinking. This country is much more alike than the politicians and media would have us believe. I know it’s a popular thing to say right now, but this really is a Purple nation. I think our elected representatives and media organizations have done us all a great disservice over the past 16 years. By trying to retrofit us all into a “red” or a “blue” state of mind they have distracted us from what we should really be focusing on.

While we have spent the last 16 years debating frivolous ideas from the fringes of both political parties, we have not been able to focus on what really matters: our families, our neighbors and our communities.

House Hunters gets to the core of what really matters in life. It epitomizes our collective hopes, dreams and fears. And it is one of the best examples of what it means to be from the United States of America.

--Posted by Evan

Second Crisis...

Lindsey really wanted to see the movie "Once."  She's been talking about it for a few months now.  I heard it was about musicians in Dublin, that it was a love story and that it had a lot of singing.  So not really my kinda thing.  But she REALLY wanted to see it so we Netflixed it and watched it tonight.

Worst.  Movie.  Ever.

I found myself hoping for the basement to flood again so I would have an excuse to go do something else.  Anything else.

But it's over now and we're back to watching election coverage on CNN.  Go Obama!

--Posted by Evan

Kevin Saves the Day...

So Kevin from Country Caretaker came by and fixed everything.  Turns out a cinder block (brick?) fell on our Sump-Pump (say that five times fast) and flicked the switch to "off."  And this caused a back-up of water and hence the flooding.  Anyway, Kevin fixed everything and now all is well in the basement.

So thank you to ADT and Kevin!!!

First Crisis...

So we arrived at the house this morning (in much need of some R&R after a particularly long week for both of us) and the basement is flooded.  We would not have even known it was flooded if not for our trusty ADT House Monitoring System (this is how often we go into the basement).

I'm kinda handy (for a Jew from the Upper West Side) but three inches of standing water is out of my league.  We called our Country Caretaker people, and they are on their way.

Stay tuned...

Is Owning a House Like Having a Kid?

I saw a statistic the other day that said the average age of first-time parents in the US is 25.1 and the average age of first-time homeowners is 35.7.

We don't have kids yet, but this year we got a house. Will it prepare us to be parents? So far owning a house has been fun, scary, exciting and while it has not been a drain financially, there have definitely been expenditures I didn't anticipate. I'd say we've spent about 75% more (post-close) than I planned for.

Based on our friends who have--or just had--kids, "fun, scary, exciting and financially interesting" seem to be the same range of emotions they associate with child-rearing. This got me thinking: is owning a house anything like having a kid?

The house inspection is like applying to schools: will it/they pass? Will we need to hire a contractor/tutor to get everything in shape? Closing day seems to be like leaving the hospital after the birth: sign a lot of forms, write some checks and bang, you're on your own. Good luck.

Then there are the day-to-day worries. Is the temperature right? Have we put the right fluids in the right places? Is the house/child properly insulated? Who is the house/child hanging out with? We have a security system for the house, but what about the child?

We think about the house a lot when we are not there. It is a source of joy, but also of worry. I imagine having a child will be much the same thing. My hope is that by having a house before a child, we will be better parents than if we did it the other way around.

--Posted by Evan