From homebuyer to homeowner

"So how's the new house?," we're often asked. Only two months from closing, and already my first impulse is to blurt out "Ack! We've turned into one of them!" in response. Yes, buying a house has a way of changing your perspective so fast, you wonder if you've had a recent lobotomy.

From market bear to cheerleader. As a homebuyer daunted by incomprehensibly inflated prices, I spent eight months rooting for prices and sales to keep sliding, greedily devouring "housing bubble" blogs that predict the worst. Now? I pounce on every glimmer of hope that our home's value will stabilize soon and rebound in a few years. Had the Globe's optimistic article about our town's real estate market appeared this summer, I'd have gone bonkers -- now, it's "bring on the buyers and make 'em sweat!"

From perfectionist to procrastinator. I was a notoriously nitpicky home shopper, pointing out every little flaw and making snarky remarks about the seller not having enough sense to fix them all for the sale. Now? With a home improvements list that would eat up six months of weekends, it's more like "well, that sloppy paint job doesn't really look that bad, and can't we just live for a while with a basement door that doesn't close?"

From ruthless homebuyer to future seller. Sellers were the enemy, you know? I'm sure they were all lovely people, but we wanted to whack some of them over the head with a stack of recent newspapers when they refused to countenance a lower price -- have they not read that the market is down? And don't even talk about the people who rejected our bids. Now? Though we plan to live here for many years, I've already caught myself telling Jordan "we'd better not change that - a future buyer might not like it!" Yes, someday that'll be us on the receiving end of the imagined newspaper whack - and we'll probably want to strangle a buyer or two ourselves.

There's one more transformation. Secretly, I always envied the sellers I railed against -- they had what I wanted to have. And now? Quiet pride in a little place we call home.