I just fetched a dozen towels to sop up water from our basement floor. Our basement floods every time it rains. I can’t wait to move out of this house!

We have a Portland address! And it’s in the neighborhood I wanted! Yay!

No, we don’t have a house yet. We got a box at the UPS Store. I called them to see if we could go ahead and set it up remotely and we could. Peter and I were worried about how we would do the change of address thing on all our stuff since we are going to have a temporary place for an undetermined amount of time before we get our permanent address.

This is a big relief because now we have a guaranteed address for a year we can give to our clients. We can slowly segue them to our permanent address when the time comes. Although the more I think of it the more I like the idea of having a separate address for business, so we may just keep it.

We have a P.O. Box in Saint Louis with the USPS. Those who know me know I am a total USPS groupie; I love the Postal Service and have a slight stamp obsession. BUT I have learned that UPS boxes are totally awesom-er because:

• Your address looks like a suite, not a P.O. box. Example: 123 Sesame St #987, Portland OR
• You have 24-hour key access to go check your mail
• You can CALL AHEAD to see if you have mail so you aren’t making an unnecessary trip

Anyway our UPS box is around Laurelhurst/Grant Park area, which I adore and hope we will live near.  Hoo-ray!

When Peter and I made the decision last fall that we would move to Portland and started spreading the word, we got various reactions. One I did not expect was “I’m moving to Portland too!”

Not that we heard this a lot, but I was surprised to learn some of my friends had been thinking of Portland as a destination too. It’s not really that surprising when you think about it – it’s a popular city for many reasons and to the chagrin of some of its residents, I think, it is growing very fast. According to our tour guide the city is anticipated to triple in population in the next 25 years. The people of Portland resenting this growth aren’t without good reason. Many of the unique defining characteristics of the city are possible and fostered because of its size and careful city planning. Fast sprawl and growth can be to its detriment.

Two of my friends from Chicago were a couple planning to move to Portland later this year. They visited last week, so excited to scope out the city they had been reading about. They didn’t like it. They have decided to stay in Chicago. Portland did not amount to what they had in their minds.

I am, of course, selfishly disappointed. But I want them to find their place, and if Portland isn’t it, they shouldn’t be there. What didn’t they like about it? Sluggish, smug, not diverse enough. And, I think those are fair  remarks. I mean it’s a first impression, and it’s honest.

Going from Chicago (population 3 million) to Portland (population 1/2 million), it’s not surprising it’s less bustling. The smug factor? It’s a west coast liberal city, I too got the impression that there are homogeneous values and ideals, moreso than my Midwest swing state background. Lack of diversity was something Peter and I noticed right away when we got to Portland.  Portland is 18% non-white. By comparison, Saint Louis is 56% non-white and Memphis is 67% non-white. And those are the two cities I grew up in. I know diversity comes in many flavors beyond ethnicity, but it does make a difference.

My friends not loving Portland reminded me that what’s best for me is not best for everyone. When I was in college I loved my college so much, I raved about it. Based in part on my accolades not one but two of my friends from high school, unhappy at their current colleges, decided to transfer to my college. Both of them hated it and left within a year. I know it wasn’t totally my fault but I felt responsible. Ever since then I’ve always been a little wary of recommending something that might impact a big decision for someone. “But check it out yourself! Don’t take my word for it!” I warn. And it’s true.

I believe: You get out of a place (and life) what you put into it. You create the life you want to live.

The Broadway Street Steel Bridge © Jan Tik

Portland Downtown at Dawn © jikido-san

Japanese Garden © ahp_ibanez

Our awesome tax dude finished our taxes and sent over the forms earlier this week, so we set an appointment at our favorite bank of all time to get a ‘good faith estimate’. A good faith estimate is basically like a dress rehearsal of the meeting where you get a preapproval letter for a loan. You discuss income, credit scores, debts, etc and the loan officer gives you a dollar amount that, based on what you have told her, is a realistic amount you could get a loan for.

In this meeting she doesn’t actually verify any of the information you give her – no credit check is performed. And no loan or rates are locked in. But now we have a number, which is wonderfully exactly in line with what we hoped. So we can start perusing listings in that price range with more confidence. We learned a lot of valuable information at our meeting…  she was so nice and patient with us (90 minutes!) that I felt guilty that we won’t be able to consider Commerce for our loan. They don’t have any branches in Oregon.

I really prefer smallish, region-based banks over the big national ones. But ultimately the mortgage will come down to the numbers and best rate we can get. I’m more concerned about having a friendly small bank for day-to-day checking stuff, the mortgage we hopefully won’t have to deal with very often aside from sending a monthly check. Besides, mortgages get bought and sold all the time so even if you do your financing with a small bank there’s a good chance they’re not the one you’ll be dealing with and sending checks to anyway.

We were pleasantly suprised to find that it doesn’t appear that both of us being self-employed will hurt us on getting a loan *knock on wood*. You just have to have meticulous income records and two years of tax statements. While most people walk out with their pre-approval letter same day of that meeting, ours will take 7-10 days because of the research the bank will have to do to check our income history. But we should get it based on this good faith estimate.

I’m going to start researching banks in Oregon (any suggestions)? With plans to visit a few shortly after we arrive in June and get some good faith estimates. It will be as much as us interviewing them as them interviewing us. I want a loan officer as awesome as the lady at Commerce we met with today.  Since Peter and I are fortunate enough to have good credit scores, no debt, and are going to pay enough down on the house to not need PMI on our loan, it seems like we will get the best interest rate possible at any given bank on our own. So I’m not sure if we need a broker, really. Is there an advantage to having one we don’t know about?

Once we find a bank in Portland we like we’ll apply for the Preapproval Letter from them, which locks in a rate and amount that is guaranteed typically for four months. This will help a seller to have confidence that we have a bank backing us up when we make an offer. However even then we won’t have to end up using the lender we got the letter from. Different loans have different stipulations, depends on the property and so many things.  It all comes down to numbers.

I guess if all else fails though…

P.S. It’s worth pausing on the fine print screen to read the most ridiculous interest rate ever.

Now that we’ve decided how we are getting our stuff to Portland, we have to plan to get all our stuff into this 8×8x16 foot container. Every inch counts, and the last thing we want to do is move junk that we don’t need or want anymore.

The nice thing about the house we’re in now is that we always knew being here was temporary (although, we have stayed longer than I thought we would!). For this reason, we never invested a lot of money in furniture or decor. Most of our furniture is thrifted or from Ikea. We’ve basically been living in a state I can only describe as halfway between college and adulthood. The good news is that we aren’t attached to most of this, and we will have a clean slate in decorating the new house! Like, totally clean, which is something to consider in our house buying budget since we’re going to need to afford to furnish it too.

Anyway, we have already started purging what we can. I like to use Gigoit to give away items that aren’t worth selling but don’t belong in the trash either. However for items that are worth selling, I’ve been using Craigslist.  With very mixed results. I like the idea of Craigslist, but in reality it has exposed me to the dregs of society. I don’t know a nicer way to put it. It’s really frustrating how many no-shows there are. People that are late. People that want me to hold the item for 2 weeks so they can look at it and MAYBE get it. People that wait until I’ve already helped them load the item in their car before they try to haggle me down to half the price. A lady who stiffed me. Did I mention no-shows? And the people that e-mail “is it still available?” even though I wrote in the first line of my ad that I will remove my ad if the item is taken, I swear, no need to ask!

Am I too uptight? Maybe. But all the above happened while I was trying to unload just ten items. It was such a headache, I don’t think I want to go that route for getting rid of everything. eBay doesn’t appeal to me either. So I have decided to have a yard sale as soon as the weather gets warm enough for it. More accurately a driveway sale since we don’t have a yard, but you know what I mean. I have never hosted a yard sale before. Any tips? Is it better to price stuff ahead or just quote it as people inquire? I know I’ll need LOTS of small bills and coins for change. I’m interested in any and all advice on making it go smoothly!

Oh and semi-related; I recently got rid of a lot of my unneeded clothes at a friend’s Ladies’ Clothing Swap. It was such a fun time, about a dozen girls brought over bags of clothes. We organized them by type and then the fun began… free new clothes! You could take as much or as little as you wanted. I got an adorable red and white polka dot sundress and some slacks. The host took the unclaimed clothing to Salvation Army the next day. I remember once I read that these sorts of parties are popular in Portland. They call them Naked Lady Parties. But that’s just what I heard.

Grammar Foul, Photo © talulahgosh

We Got Stuff, Photo © paulswansen

Yahd Sale, Photo © mindfulbreath

More Garage Sale Signs. There seriously is a blog for everything, god bless you internet.