We are celebrating our official relocation to Albuquerque, New Mexico! For those of you who have been following our journey you probably know by now that your girl likes to travel. After leaving New York at the start of the pandemic, partly out of necessity rather than desire, we hit the road with our sights set on manifesting our next home.

After a few adventures visiting some of our dream destinations in the U.S., we stumbled across a small historic neighborhood close to downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico and fell in love. The mountain views & amazing food really appealed to us. The culture, community, and people we met right away also felt so aligned with the vision of what we wanted to create in our next home.

Fast forward through a year of traveling, preparing, & planning and we’re back in New Mexico. We know our desires, we know our vision, and most importantly we know what it feels like to have it. Think about something you would like to manifest in your life. Can you feel what it would be like to call in and hold that desire?

So what’s it like buying a second property in the post-pandemic housing market you ask? A bit chaotic to say the least. Across the nation people are streaming from the crowded urban centers and into smaller cities and their surrounding suburbs. This increased demand combined with housing inventory shortages has added some complications to the home-buying process.

We learned right away that good homes don’t last long in the market right now. Some of our initial prospects even went into contract while we were still waiting to get in for a viewing! The only homes that seemed to last longer than a week usually had some form of structural, mechanical, or aesthetic damage. Having a reliable Realtor willing to move quickly & get us into places we liked was a must.

With how fast homes are moving it was crucial to be really clear on our vision. We had already done the research and knew what neighborhoods we were open to, what our desires for the home were, and what the non-negotiables were. This was the time for persistence and surrender.

After missing out on some beautiful homes in the mountains and being outbid on several other properties, the temptation to re-evaluate our strategy was real. Just when we started to discuss other options, a beautiful historic home came on sale in the same neighborhood we had fallen in love with the previous summer while visiting. 

We called our Realtor immediately and got in to view the house the following afternoon. After seeing the property (virtually might I add!) we realized that the home was listed as a 2 bedroom on a technicality since the entire Master Suite did not have an enclosed closet space. In terms of livability the home was actually set up as a 3 bedroom and was every bit of the sacred South Western sanctuary we had dreamed of.

We put in an offer that day for $5k over asking price with a cash bid so they would take it off the market. So we were under contract before they had finalized the open house. This is where we really had an advantage, because if they would have shown the house, dozens of offers would have come streaming in.

When we bought our first property in 2018, we waited and negotiated. We wound up closing at $5-10K lower price than asking, and with a minimal down payment. In the post-pandemic real estate market though, these tactics simply won’t work.

If you want to manifest a change in your living environment, you need to be completely clear on what feeling you want to shift into and be flexible on how that desire will be delivered to you.

We started casting our vision over 12 months ago, and started taking intentional aligned action towards manifesting our dream home in the mountains 5 months ago.

While we may not have manifested our artist commune & retreat center in the mountains (yet! It’s still on our radar), we manifested something far greater.

A completely move-in ready home that needed little to no work, in a neighborhood we never would have thought we could afford (& that houses rarey come up for sale in for that matter), a few blocks down the street from our favorite park, the Grower’s Market, and Downtown ABQ.

And let this be your reminder that if we can completely transform and uplevel our lives in less than 6 months, so can you.