Accidentally in love

...or, Sunday morning coffee post.

Regarding the skunk. I took matters into my own hands. It turned out not to be that difficult. I'd read on Google that the only thing that works, other than hiring a trapper, is light. Skunks are nocturnal and don't like light. The open area below my house is covered with paneling, so of course it is very dark under there. 3 of the panels come off to allow access to the crawl space. I simply removed one of the panels, and the skunk smell went away the same day! I guess it doesn't take much sunlight at all to annoy the little critters! A week or so later, when my landlord was over to fix yet another maintenance issue, he asked DH why the panel was removed. I was in the other room, listening. DH explained about the skunk, and Landlord actually admitted that he had smelled a skunk from time to time during the 9 months or so that this place was vacant before we moved in. I thought I must not have heard that right, since he told me, in writing, that he had NEVER seen or smelled a skunk in 15 years on this mountain. DH asked me about it later, if I had heard him, and I was incredulous.

In other news, we have accidentally fallen in love with a piece of real estate. It is very distressing. It is a 5-acre property not too far from our house, that has been for sale for a year. We've known since we moved here that it appeared to be an ideal property for us, but the price was too high, and we really aren't in the market yet anyway. We said if the price was reduced to $200k, then we might make an offer. Well, last week or so, the price was reduced to $200k.

You'd think we'd be thrilled, but we found this to be very sobering. As I've previously mentioned, we'd recently decided that this location is a bit too far from Portland, as DH would like to be able to enjoy the diversions of Portland more easily than planning ahead for at least a 4-hour round trip drive. On paper, this property description has an absolutely uncanny resemblance to the description of our dream property that we had outlined a couple of years ago. And I'm talking about a long list of must-haves and wants. So yesterday, we went to look at the property in detail. Kind of hoping we would hate it. It's actually even better than advertised. Very distressing.

We left the place and drove to a rural area that is closer to Portland. We saw what I would describe as mile after mile of luxury farms. Nothing for sale, and even if it were, it's way out of our price range. I checked MLS listings when we got home and found a) no properties for sale that match our description, and b) nothing for sale that doesn't match our description that we can afford. DH had mentioned this in the car...this property that is too-far-from-PDX-yet-otherwise-perfect has raised the bar and we will never find another property like it for $200k.

I don't know. Does it matter, when we had previously decided we weren't ready to enter the real estate market for at least another year? And also, what do we really know about real estate around here, since we haven't been looking? When we went to Sedona, we spent some time talking with a tour guide who had moved with his wife and baby daughter from So Cal. They didn't have much cash to start with, and he was working in Sedona as a janitor. They wanted to buy a house. He told us that they spoke to a few agents who literally laughed at them. They were not discouraged. They just hit the pavement and went house-hunting alone for the next couple of months. Within a few months, they found and purchased a house at the price they wanted, the price all the agents laughed at. I've heard that's frequently true of rural properties. They won't be advertised, you have to find them in person. I guess we will keep our fingers crossed and keep looking.

I did make note of one listing I found advertised last night. It was a million dollar piece of property - home on 25 acres, close to Portland - hilltop 180 degree view - that was listed for under $400k. The agent indicated his own distress that the owner insisted on such a low price, but said the owner is basically desperate. This seemed true since they listed the place in December and have dropped the price every 2 weeks. Now, maybe if the price were dropped to $200k, we might make an offer...hmmmm...