Bones, Bedrooms, and a Bidding War: Obstacles (Part 1)
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“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley [go oft awry]”
- From To a Mouse, by the Scots poet Robert Burns
Obstacles present themselves in all parts of life. Solutions vary, and their appropriateness is context specific and subjective. Two people can be given the same project and the same obstacle and find completely different solutions for dealing with the obstacle. And guess what, both might be perfectly appropriate. This series will explore how we assess projects and obstacles and ultimately decide what solution is right for our own needs.
When Juanita and I moved to our current neighborhood two summers ago, to the fringe of what is still technically within the city of Austin, it was not where we initially planned to move. For the last five years, we had lived in a neighborhood in the south part of Austin’s urban core.
Schools, shopping, entertainment, and recreation were all within walking distance or an easy transit ride away. We had our local pizza shop, taco shop, halal, movie theater, bar, coffee, vet, dentist, doctor, nail salon, mechanic, and too many others to name. There was even a local mini mart where we knew the clerks by name.
I’m not describing a hypothetical, idealized neighborhood. This was our actual neighborhood. We visited every one of those businesses on foot or by bus more than once while living there.
My daily work commute was either walking or taking the bus. We were a one-car family at that time, and we absolutely loved it.
The neighborhood wasn’t perfect. The street design allowed drivers to feel comfortable going well above the speed limit. The sidewalks, in many cases, were narrow and built right up to the back of the curb with no buffer. Typically, unless the sidewalk itself is more than six feet wide, you’d want to see a space of five to seven feet between the curb and the edge of the sidewalk. That’s where you get your shade trees, flowers, etc. (The next time you see it set up that way – road, planting zone, then sidewalk – remember that it’s for more than just aesthetics. It’s for safety.) Also, many buildings along the main roadway were set deep into the lot with parking in front of the building. Another example of an environment built to accommodate cars first and humans second. For all its blemishes, though, it had good bones, and new developments were fleshed out in a way that made you want to linger. The neighborhood was good and getting better.
Time passed. Our two girls grew and wouldn’t stop. Before we knew it, one was a teenaged high schooler, and the girls’ shared bedroom felt like it was bursting at the seams. It was time to find a place with a third bedroom.
That became our project.
Our goal: As mentioned, find a place with a third bedroom, preferably in the same neighborhood or same general part of town.
Restrictions: Mostly time and money. Just like most people, we had a limit to what we could afford for rent, and we needed to find a place before our current lease expired.
The obstacle: We’re getting there, but first, let’s talk about obstacles at a high level.
How do you deal with obstacles? Do you stop everything and abandon the project? Do you find a way around, avoiding direct conflict? Do you deny the obstacle, looking for ways to barrel through as originally planned? Do you embrace the obstacle as an unexplored opportunity, finding ways to incorporate it into your plan?
You may expect me to pick one of the options as the ideal, admonishing the others as the path of laziness or incompetence. That’s the way how-to, advice articles go, right? Not here.
I prefer to steer away from contrived axioms that prize simplistic, one-size-fits-all solutions masquerading as “practical” or “pragmatic”. The real world is nuanced, and one size rarely fits all. Rather than looking for a single solution, let’s explore a philosophical approach – a pragmatic way of thinking – that lends itself to identifying the appropriate solution for the circumstances of a given situation.
The answer to the question of how to deal with obstacles is that, given the circumstances, any one of those options might be the right way to go.
How do we figure out the right approach? Well, there are a number of considerations. Too many to capture in this sort of format. But what we will do is to talk about the types of things to take into account, creating general outlines that we can use situation by situation.
What is the project? In what ways can it be described and defined? What values does the project carry? What is the scope – parameters, goals, restrictions, requirements, etc.? Said another way, what is the project trying to do? What isn’t the project trying to do? What can’t it do? In what ways is the project flexible? In what ways is itrigid?
Now, let’s look at the other side.
What is the obstacle? Is it real or perceived? Is it tangible or abstract? How rigid is the obstacle? Is there human discretion involved? Is it negotiable? What are the impacts of the obstacle – financial, time, something else? Will the obstacle have a direct, quantifiable impact on the project? A qualitative impact? Can your ultimate outcome be the same, just through a more complex process to get there?
That’s a sampling of the types of considerations to include. As we train our minds to think in this way, the process will become more intuitive, and other, more context-specific questions will tend to present themselves as you assess your own situation.
Our typical approach to finding a new place to live is to do online searches for availability, location, and price. When we find a match, we look through photos and reviews (if available). If we like what we see, we set up a time to tour the place and then decide whether to submit a rental application.
In our search for a place with a bedroom for each of the girls, we did this once, then twice. Each time we found a place that worked for us, we lost out to another renter. This isn’t too unusual. We live in Austin, and sometimes places go quickly. Getting an application in just a bit behind someone else’s is something that happens.
But that’s not what was happening.
This was the summer of 2021, and the housing market (for ownership and for rental) was the most intense seller’s market we’ve seen across the country, perhaps ever. COVID was still wreaking havoc. The Federal Reserve had lowered interest rates in order to stave off a recession, making credit very easy to come by. Housing, which was already lacking in supply, began seeing valuations jump by unprecedented leaps and bounds, in some areas of the country (much of Austin included) nearly doubling in a matter of months.
The effect in the rental market manifest as bidding wars and full-lease cash offers.
After losing out on multiple properties, we assessed the obstacle, re-evaluated our parameters, and joined the game as our resources allowed and our restrictions required.
We widened our geographic boundaries, began putting in applications on anything that fit our requirements before visiting in-person, and we began offering above asking price. Remember, we were operating in the rental market, not the ownership market.
We ended up finding a place that fit everything we were looking for in terms of the within-the-walls items. And we got very lucky that the in-person visit didn’t disappoint. Granted, we had to go twenty percent over asking price in order to secure it. Also, it was on the outer fringes of town, not close to any public transit options, meaning we would become a two-car family again.
But all of this was our decision based on our goals, needs, restrictions, flexibility and the nature of the obstacle at hand. While we miss our old neighborhood, our new neighborhood is not all bad. We do have a number of businesses that are within walking distance. We do have quaint places to walk. And we have great neighbors.
There’s a lot to love about this neighborhood. In fact, some of the more distinctive and desirable parts of the neighborhood were born of obstacles that the developers faced while planning things out. And we’ll get into that later in this series.
Help get the conversation kicked off by describing how you’ve overcome an obstacle. What was your project, and what was the obstacle? Describe it in the ways outlined here, and talk about what you took into account to find the fix. Post in the comments, and get your friends involved in the conversation by sharing this article.