Adventures in House Hunting

After being a renter for ever and ever, I decided it was time to buy a house. That of course meant looking at houses. Thanks to my helpful realtor/friend wheels were in motion and in short order I had an online list of houses. It was a bit overwhelming but I quickly created a system and a spreadsheet of houses I wanted to see. I do indeed love lists and spreadsheets so this process became just like any other when I have to make a decision.

Luckily my realtor was game and in two afternoons we saw a heck of a lot of houses. Some were on the possibility list. More than a few were on the no way in hell list. It was a lot at once but it gave me a good sense of locations I wanted to move to and what I was looking for in a home. I have been pretty insulated from the foreclosure mess and it was eye opening to see how many homes there are still out there. Some were very sad and you clearly knew that the people moving out were not happy about it. I can understand being in a bad situation but it just seems wrong to destroy your house before moving out solely to spite the bank.

The few homes that were occupied were interesting. You can't help but walk through a house and get a sense of who lives there. We did run into pets. One home had a huge cat that was very friendly. One had a huge cat that was a bit standoffish. That was also the house with the free range chickens that made their appearance known as we were leaving. Upon opening the door to go, I was greeted with a chicken on the doorstep that startled me to no end! One home, which we had to wade through a sea of trash bags to enter, had the happiest white dog in a crate. It did appear that people lived there and she wasn't abandoned, but we did both wonder if we needed to rescue her. Unfortunate wallpaper seemed to be everywhere as well. We saw a few creepy basements that I would never set foot in to do laundry. One house smelled like pee. I still hope it was pet and not human but we didn't stay long enough to determine for sure which. There was the house with the murky pool. The house with the small deck taken up by the giant hot tub. There were a few with bars that would have suited me better if I was perhaps a 20 year old bachelor.

 In the end the last house we saw on the 2nd day, which wasn't even on my list, was the one that stuck in my head. So we'll see where it goes!