Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Search for a new base

The way life takes one is sometimes a riddle for even the best minds and thinkers amongst us. Hence one fine morning I found myself distributing my wedding invitations and taking queries about preparations. Everything about getting married looks rosy(well, at least it did :P ) except the task of moving away from the bachelor house and settling in a house of one's own.

I must admit that it was quite challenging and I felt overwhelmed at times when faced with the various complexities of searching for the 'right' house to start our new life. Being a foolhardy and easy going traveller, finding a solid house was almost the opposite of what I knew about life, and that troubled me somewhere inside.

The usual way people do these are by talking to some real estate broker and get them to find the right place. I had done that myself a couple of times when looking for new places to live as bachelors. Well, now the game was being played at a different level altogether, and I had the innate sense of responsibility creeping up my guts slowly. Not only did I have very less time to take chances, I had to ensure that I counted various factors in selecting a home that I have never considered important in my life.

That made the whole 'operation', and yes that's what I like to call it, very interesting. I had tactically tried to evade the entire task by waiting for my fiancée to be transferred to same city and same office complex. I unwittingly kept on procrastinating until the day was upon me and my marriage was merely a fortnight away. At this point of time, I pushed myself off my bum and decided that I wouldn't go via the pesky real estate agents and rather put my own time and get the house myself, thereby saving some money too. *Pride*

(image credits peloruslearning.com)

But this meant that I had to spend a lot of time researching on the real estate conditions, checking available options and comparing them aggressively. I had heard about many online real estate websites that help in finding rentals at ease. I swear I must have heard at least 3-4 names repeated by various sources, and often with conflicting comments. Unable to come to conclusion by hearsay, I decided to put my time on it, and started off with a couple of them, scouring the sites, customizing my options and slowly learning what's for sale on the internet.

I found at least a couple of websites to be really good with the interfaces, but when it came to the quality of data, I found housing.com to be the best option. Not  only was every single ad and owner contact number accurate and up-to-date, they even had a mechanism to interface between owners and buyers, helping in making calls and sending reminders. This helped me especially since I would get return calls from owners I had contacted while I was riding my bike searching for the houses. Housing.com kept on providing me info on missed calls I received from owners and let them be tracked properly.

I must have visited at least 25 properties in a span of two days but when I was standing inside my current home, with the best deal one could get, just on the second day, I even suspected that I made a mistake somewhere. While this might sound like an ad, I must admit that I realized afterwards that if it wasn't for Housing.com, I wouldn't have found the home that we call our wonderful adobe right now. The story of its discovery is another topic in itself, but nothing short of serendipity, a word that I fell so deeply in love with :)

Anyway, here we are, one month after our marriage and with a good jump start for our exciting life ahead, feeling thankful for the presence of friends, relatives and some good neighbours that were found thanks to the time I decided to spend on the internet efficiently.

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