I have a job interview tomorrow.

[Myrina]

10. The house will find you when you're ready for it.

That was my experience, anyway. Several years back I took a part time job (nights/weekends) doing clerical stuff at a real estate office, mostly for the extra money. But I also developed good relationships with a couple agents and the mortgage officer. Turns out, in addition to helping me get my financial house in order, he & one of the agents was also flipping houses on the side & had one less than a mile from where I lived at the time ... on a quiet little street I knew well. It never jumped out at me because it's an innocuous tiny-looking little red-brick Brady Bunch house with a carport instead of garage & a driveway that seems a mile long. After I worked at the p/t gig for a few months, he commented in passing that the house was about ready to go on the market and I replied half-jokingly that, how coincidental, my apartment lease was up at the end of the next month.

He said they had small things to finish on the house but he was getting restless with the carrying cost of it & would I be interested in renting it & maybe helping them with yardwork/paint etc for a discount?

I went to take a closer look at it - again from the outside it isn't much - but when I looked in the living room window & saw the evening sun bouncing off those hardwood floors, saw the brand new kitchen, fenced yard for my doggies to chase critters to their hearts' content and smelled the perennials that were growing along the side of the house, I was smitten.

I moved in 3 weeks later and less than 3 weeks after that, he called me at my other job and said 'Guess what? I've got you approved for an FHA loan. Wanna buy a house?'

There are days - especially in bad weather when all I can see are potential repair bills - when I hate it .... but in my heart I know that this house found me & I was destined to be its caretaker.