the inner journey of house-hunting

Our neighbour is looking to sell her house. Yet again.

After an aborted attempt in January 2026, when you-know-what happened and the world, notably Canada, plunged into severe uncertainty.

At that time, it felt as if the safest thing one could do was to hunker down where we were and be grateful for what we had and hope the coming four years would pass like a nightmare — terrifying while in the thick of it, but without leaving too lasting an impact in our real lives.

And then Mark Carney came along and showed us a different way of dealing with the situation on hand. Not by hunkering down and digging our heads into the proverbial sand, but by standing tall and striding forth in action, in exploration, in active search of opportunities, both for the short term and the long term.

So when our neighbour decided to put up the For Sale sign at the entrance to our condo townhouse area, something jolted awake in me a couple of weeks ago.

KrA and I have been thinking of moving out of the place we currently live in to accommodate our changing needs — which I am sure I will write about at length in the days to come — but the time had never felt right.

Now that D is in Grade 5, and will soon be looking to decide where he'd like to go for high school, we feel a change is in order.

Perhaps not right away. There's no urgency. Yet. But if there's one thing we've learnt from our house-hunting and purchase experience the first time around, it's this: Time can be your friend, if you have an abundance of it.

Over the years, KrA and I have also come to see that we didn't know anything about buying a home. Now that we've lived in a home and experienced what it entails, we have a better understanding of where we'd like to put down roots, so to speak.

So even though we don't feel pressured to make an immediate purchase — we're giving ourselves 2—3 years of time — we realized that now is a good time to start looking.

Think about it as preparing for an interview for your dream job, if such a concept even exists anymore.

That wouldn't be the very first interview you'd appear for, especially if you haven't been actively job hunting in the recent past. You'd likely apply to other low-stakes opportunities to get back into the groove of interviewing and refining your responses and mental and emotional preparedness before you go in for the kill.

That's what we're doing now.

Starting to look at properties and visiting some of them in a bid to understand what exists, what we'd like, what our budget is, and where there can be a reasonable intersection of all these aspects in a way that is satisfying, both financially and emotionally.

So the plan we came up with was this: For now, every couple of weeks, we'll shortlist 2—3 homes within our estimated budget that have an Open House scheduled. That would give us a chance to look around and get acquainted with what to look for in homes.

With that in mind, we shortlisted 3 properties to view this past Sunday afternoon.

The first one was at Galway Drive. When we turned up, there was no one at home. We tried calling the agent's number provided on the For Sale sign, but no one picked up.

Another car parked right behind ours and out stepped a family of three along with an agent — you could tell from her Louis Vuitton handbag! The agent spoke to someone on the phone and punched some numbers into the electronic pin-pad lock on the door and the family disappeared into the house.

I called out to the agent and learnt that she was the buyers' agent and that they had come there by appointment and that there wasn't an Open House scheduled for that afternoon.

Oh, well! On to the next house.

This one was at Tuck Drive. As we drove towards it, we passed a mansion — all newly built and swanky, from the looks of it — and I squealed!

In bright, metallic lettering, the words Hari Bol, that too IN HINDI, in that beautiful Devnagari script, gleamed from the façade!

An Indian!
OK, a religious one.
But an Indian, nonetheless!
That too, an affluent Indian from the looks of it!

Anyhoo, walking down Tuck Drive gave us a greater sense of spaciousness than we had felt when we were hanging out at Galway Drive.

KrA went up to the door and knocked. The lady who answered us said there was no Open House scheduled for that day but that we were welcome to make an appointment to see the house another time.

Strike Two!

The final stop we made was at Linden Avenue. This was a charming little home with pre-approved plans for adding a second storey.

The door opened directly into a large kitchen-cum-living area. The kitchen island itself was as big as the king-sized bed we have in our main bedroom, haha! My first thought upon seeing that was that this vast, open surface is an invitation for the accumulation of clutter!

Ever wonder how stuff simply gets thrown onto tabletops, countertops, tops of corner tables? Most of it being junk mail and random papers that no one's going to cast a second glance at!

A cosy, winding staircase led up to a large bedroom, part of which was under a sloping roof.

Downstairs, the basement had two bedrooms and a storage-cum-laundry room — KrA looked at me before I saw it and said, "You won't like this," because a beautiful laundry area with a window that lets in plenty of natural light and room to keep a clothes stand alongside space to fold and iron clothes in is something I dream of, haha!

It also had an area that held what appeared to be enclosures for many small animals. We guessed rabbits or hamsters. Although we didn't see any. It had that distinctly animal farm smell.

There were also two bedrooms on the main floor, adjacent to the living room-plus-kitchen area. One had an abundance of natural light pouring in through its west-facing window.

The other looked out into the backyard and this was the room that made me imagine myself sitting in the big chair that was at the foot of the bed, reading a book, looking out the window into the vast backyard that had many mature trees that kept neighbouring homes out of sight.

I could visualize the passing of seasons here. Fall leaves sprinkling gold and crimson jewels everywhere. Snow blanketing every surface in winter. Neon-green leaves bursting to life in spring. Bright blue skies and warm sunshine lighting up the world outside and the heart inside in the summer.

D too thought about space for a basketball hoop and potential space for a swimming pool in the backyard.

KrA and I loved the snug size of it. We don't need or want a large home. We just want a more spacious feel with a backyard and a bathroom in the ground floor so that my parents or his parents can come for a visit and not be forced to climb up and down stairs every time they need to go to the loo!

The house had too much of its inhabitable area in the basement for me to give it serious thought.

But after we viewed it, I couldn't help but think what an interesting house it was to view. It wouldn't be a comfortable house for us to live in, but it made for such intriguing viewing.

It appeared like a place that had been built around a family's needs, perhaps. Unlike new builds that are so cookie-cutter and soulless!

And that now makes me look at houses not merely as providers of shelter and comfort, but as witnesses to lives unfolding. If the walls could speak, imagine what stories they could tell us about the people who lived there.

Not the stories of what they set out to achieve in the outside world.
But the tales of what kept them up at night, their deepest dreams and desires,
what haunted them, their regrets and fears,
what they valued the most,
what they chose to do when they were at home.

Did they cherish their home?
Did they look out of the windows and adore their backyard?
Did they spend time walking barefoot on the green grass?
Did they lie on it and look at the blue skies above and try to decipher the secret messages of clouds drifting by?

I came back home and wondered what stories my house would tell about me when I'm gone.

Would it have fond memories of me?

Would it feel that I loved it for as long as I lived here? Or at least tried to?

Would it also remember the times I dreaded coming back to it because this place just didn't feel like home and that it was often a struggle to feel happy here?

Would it understand that much of my angst came from the desperation of not being able to balance motherhood and work and marriage and inner healing?

Because this house has been kind to me, I can attest to that.

In spring and in fall, when the sun is at the perfect angle, sunlight pours into our living room and two bedrooms upstairs, both south-facing, and leaf shadow dances on the walls, giving it a slippery, shimmery, underwater feeling.

During summer, it's like a furnace. Although this past summer, the temperatures outside were lower than usual and we didn't use our portable AC on more than 3—5 occasions, which was a rarity.

In the winter, the fireplace and the baseboard heaters keep our home cozy and warm.

But occasionally I feel trapped in here. We've lived here for 8 years now. This is the longest I've ever lived in a home in my entire life.

But Burlington feels like home. I reckon that's largely because of not-so-little D. Our lives are centred around his school and his activities. Without those, there's not much else that keeps us tethered to Burlington.

Maybe the lake. Lake Ontario.

Yet, when I looked at KrA and asked him, "We're looking for a place where we can spend old age in, right?", he answered without hesitation, "Yes!"

It's a joyful feeling to trust that such a place exists somewhere. And that we're on the path to meeting it and falling in love with it sharing the love that we carry in our hearts with it.