“I met him online, we met through the internet, we found each other through a computer dating site.” You hear so many people say that they met their significant other through online dating sites all the time. And for every successful match up there are two or three horror stories about people misrepresenting themselves, saying they look like a 6 foot tall, strapping male model, but turning out to be 5.2 feet tall, rather burly, and bald. It’s not any different house searching on the MLS online housing market. Read “gorgeous tall home, seeking committed buyer, has large windows, and a large perfect yard.
What that really means is the windows are filthy because they are too high to reach, and by the time you finish repairing all that’s wrong with the house you might want to be committed. The yard, sure it’s perfect, a postage stamp sized lot. “Single condo seeks personable and generous buyer.” Objective love, and emptying your bank account. We found what I thought was our dream home online just after our first foray into the housing search this spring. We had just returned from a reality check where pepto bismal pink bathrooms, and ten foot long handmade tubs ruled the market, and were very expensive.
“Oh sweetie look, it’s perfect for us.” Split level, large half acre lot on a flat site, tall cathedral ceiling in the living room, and room for a gym, all wrapped up in a desirable area. I visited this house online every single day from spring, until we arrived here in winter. Checking it out, watching to see if it was sold, who it was dating. I emailed copies to friends, asking is this the one, it’s perfect are we a match? I knew every detail of the online photos, I had the measurements committed to memory, the garden planned down to the last trellis. I spent hours looking at the online photos, peering into them trying to see through windows to catch a glimpse of the view it might have. I freakin Google Earthed it’s location to check out the neighbours yards. Two days after we arrived we went to view it, consider it the coffee date. It wasn’t quite like the pictures. From the street it looked shabbier then online,but this was a first date, we could work on that. The garage was tiny, it had looked huge in the photos. We went inside and the date started to fall apart. It was filthy, and yes, it was the house with the dog poop in the crawlspace. The window sills were in disrepair, the kitchen was a mess, and the bathroom was black with mould. The date ended in disaster. You might say we broke up before we even started to date.
We learned that the same as online dating, house hunting what you see isn’t what you get. To read between the lines, and to realize that the black fuzzy spots on the kitchen cupboards are not just from low light pics, but mould. We now scrutinize photos for shots of dirty carpets, smeared windows, and clothing scattered all around the room. Those are usually not the kind of houses we need to see. Call it a learning curve for online house dating.