HOME, SWEET HOME, FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

Byline: GREGORY J. WILCOX

It's our anniversary this month. On Dec. 20, 1998, my wife Chris and I moved into our first home.

That day was a long time coming.

In the spring of 1989, the median price of a San Fernando Valley house hit a then record $245,000, and I resigned myself to a lifetime of renting.

I envied friends who jumped into the market 10 years earlier, especially one couple with three rental properties in Simi Valley.

``Willie, when are ya going to buy a house?'' was a constant question at our frequent gatherings.

Sure there was a certain stigma, real or imagined, with apartment living, but I sweetened my situation by renting in buildings with an ocean view -- first in Manhattan Beach's El Porto section and then in Long Beach's Belmont Shore.

My roommate and I moved to El Porto Street on St. Patrick's Day in 1974. The rent then was $325 a month, the same we paid for a two bedroom pad at Oakwood Garden Apartments in Van Nuys, and on a clear day we could see Catalina Island.

A dozen years later I moved to Belmont Shore, and the rent was $600 a month. Great restaurants, bars and shops were all within walking distance and the Pacific was right across Ocean Boulevard.

On bad traffic days, of which there were many, the commute took several hours.

One summer my brother and his son came to visit. We put out beach chairs and a cooler of beer on our small but very well-tended front lawn.

``Geez, Greggie,'' my brother Steve said as he pulled his first beer from the cooler. ``Everybody else in the country lives behind you.''

Yeah, I thought, but most of them in their own homes.

Then the housing market began an inexorable turn down as sales and prices fell, first in response to an economic upheaval and then the devastating Northridge Earthquake in 1994.

By that time I was married and a one-bedroom apartment seemed even less appealing despite the view out of the front room window.

Mel Wilson, the former president of the Southland Regional Association of Realtors, and my wife, Chris, also weighed in on the subject.

``Let's move to the Valley. I want a house,'' she said in the autumn of 1998.

And that was that.

I called Mel and one late September Friday night we stayed at a motel on Ventura Boulevard and started our search the next day.

The recovery started in 1997, but prices were still reasonable -- the median that year averaged $163,833.

The financial part was not as terrifying as I imagined. As an Army veteran I qualified for a V.A. home loan and we were pre-qualified by our lender so we knew what price range to look in.

But even back then you could not find a house in a weekend, and competition among buyers was heating up.

Most Saturdays, and many Sundays, were spent cruising Valley neighborhoods.

One house in West Hills looked great from the outside. But the inside had mirrored walls, a weird kitchen layout and a black tile floor. And all the toilets were broken.

Another was a stately two-story colonial in Northridge. But the couple had divorced and the inside was completely trashed and vile slogans scrawled across the walls.

Then we found a house in Chatsworth we liked and went back to Mel's office to write up an offer. We were a little late. Another offer had been accepted an hour earlier.

A few blocks away we found another house we liked. A four-bedroom one-story rancher on a tree-lined street. The backyard featured a pool and spa. We offered $10,000 less than the selling price, and the owners accepted.

Then they told us that the sale depended on using a specific mortgage company.

We said no deal.

Two weeks later, in early November, Mel showed us a two-story, four- bedroom on a quiet cul-de-sac in Winnetka. It featured an in-ground spa, nice backyard, up to date kitchen, a dining room and den.

The office was less than 10 minutes away.

We spent the weekend thinking on it and made an offer. Mel called a couple of hours later and said we had a deal.

We were both giddy.

Escrow finally closed, and we moved in five days before Christmas.

At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, two guys from Sears hooked up our washer and dryer.

The adventure was just beginning.

First we had to wrestle with the spa. We went out the first weekend and noticed some tiles had started to fall off, despite the former owners' repeated assurances that everything was in working order.

About $900 later we had new tile and refilled the spa with water, turned on the heater and waited for the water to warm. And waited and waited and waited. The heater was shot.

And we never used the spa.

Then on a Friday night a couple of years later a stately row of Italian Cypress trees that formed a giant green wall behind out house caught fire.

The house was spared but the backyard was ruined.

Then there was the weekend the air conditioner broke during the middle of a heat wave.

Then there was the little cosmetic face-lift of one of the upstairs bathrooms (wall paper removal) that turned into a major remodel. Seems the steamer I used to remove the glue that was left on the wall after I peeled the paper off also weakened the glue holding a square mirror on the wall.

It came crashing down in the middle of the night.

The back- and front yards have been redone, there is a new spa, and Chris has the rose garden she's always wanted.

Are there hassles to homeownership? Of course. One is the appreciation.

We paid a little more than the median price ($195,000 in November 1998) and the house is worth much more than that now.

And, there will always be this...

Each year at this time I know that my wife and I will truly be home for the holidays.

greg.wilcox(at)dailynews.com

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