Our (New) House Plans
Foundation work on our house in Durham continues, while the list of things we will be doing ourselves after the foundation work is done continues to grow. And though it’s a frustrating place to be in, knowing we can’t sell this house for another 5-6 months, we keep reminding ourselves that the end goal is Hawaii and it will be worth it.
Photo by Lillie Elliot of Lillie Elliot Photography.
Once we move (hopefully February 2021), we won’t be in the market to buy a new house immediately. Our plan right now is to have an AirBnb or other short term rental on Oahu (the island where Honolulu is) booked for about a month when we get there. During that month, we will look for a longer-term (6-12 month) rental (also on Oahu).
We initially said that we wanted to rent for a few years before we bought another house. Okay, technically only I said that, not Chris. And, also technically, I said that a few weeks after we found out that the foundation repair alone on our house was going to be $27,000. But, to be fair, getting to “let’s rent for a few years before we buy again” was an improvement. My statement in the hours and days after getting the estimate was something like “we are never owning another house again and I don’t care what you say you can’t make me I hate this house why did we ever buy this piece of crap I want to live in a cardboard box.”
It was an emotional time. But I digress.
One of the reasons our timeline for buying a house again has moved up is that we took a look at the rental market in Hawaii. As we have been told approximately 8,319 times, Hawaii is expensive. This may come as a surprise, but the markets in Durham and Hawaii are vastly different. Hah. We were prepared for what we were going to have to spend to buy a house on Oahu. What we weren’t prepared for was the rental market. A quick perusal of it immediately changed our thoughts from “let’s rent for a few years” to “let’s rent for as little time as possible.”
Photo by Lillie Elliot of Lillie Elliot Photography.
So we’ve been talking and thinking a lot about what we want to buy in Hawaii. We want to take all the mistakes we made in buying our current house into consideration to try to help us do a much better job in our next purchase. So I thought I would share with you what we are thinking.
Must Haves:
Proximity to the beach: this is #1, for both of us. We obviously won’t be able to afford anything on the beach, but we also don’t want to be a 30 minute drive away. Our goal is to be within a 10 minute walk from a beach. Rigsbee (our 2-year-old, 100 lb lab/Great Dane mix) would be in heaven if his daily walk could include swimming in the ocean. Swimming also quickly drains his energy, and if you’ve ever been around a 100 lb toddler, well, let’s just say everyone is happier when his energy is drained. From our research, it looks like this is possible. So we’re hopeful.
Max 1500 square feet: I talked about this in a previous post about buying our current house, but we are downsizing as much as possible. We are really looking for 1000-1200 sq ft, but would go up to 1500. But SMALLER is the name of the game here.
2-3 bedrooms: Chris works from home and has to have a dedicated office, so that’s 2 bedrooms (including where we sleep). We are also hoping to have a lot of visitors, so a 3rd bedroom would be awesome, but isn’t a must. Mom & Dad can sleep on an air mattress (not to self: buy an air mattress in Hawaii).
Proximity to town: we don’t want to live in Honolulu. We want to be in a smaller town. But we would LOVE our next house to be walkable to stores, bars, restaurants, supermarkets, etc. We really envision so much of our life in Hawaii outside, and we would love to depend on a car a whole lot less than we do now. While we’re close to downtown Durham, it’s still over a mile away and not really walkable. Being a 10-15 minute walk from businesses would be amazing.
Fixer Upper: this is something we’ve only recently added, but we would really like to buy something that needs some work and do the work ourselves. We had so many ideas for this house that we never got to do (or are only doing to sell the house), and we’d like to change that. I really enjoy DIY, so I’m hoping that can be something we do together on our next house.
Yard: I’m only speaking for myself, not Chris here, but I am looking forward to a small yard (and based on lot sizes and prices in Hawaii, I think we’ll get it). We live on a corner lot and have a relatively big yard here and it has always overwhelmed me. When we moved in it was a complete blank slate and Chris has done an amazing job doing some landscaping, but I would love a smaller yard that didn’t require the time and financial investment our current one does. I was thinking this even before I saw Young House Love’s beach house backyard makeover and when I saw it I was like, YES. THAT. EXACTLY. Sherry said they can walk into the backyard with it looking pretty bad and have it looking almost pristine again in 20 minutes. I would love that.
Outdoor living space: many houses that we’ve looked at in Hawaii have outdoor decks and patios that increase the living space for a smaller house. This is exactly what we’re looking for. Less space inside, more options outside. I mean, with the climate in Hawaii, why would you want to be inside? It will be amazing to be able to sit out on a deck or patio year-round.
So that’s where we are right now. Waiting for our foundation to be fixed so we can get to work on the rest of the repairs. Waiting for the pandemic to ease up so we can hug our friends and family again (and maybe possibly hopefully definitely get them to help us with all of said repairs). And dreaming of long walks on Hawaiian beaches.