Homehunting, Day One. On Saturday we went out with our realtor, who has sold two houses for my mom in the past. I also was in Girl Scouts with her daughter about a thousand years ago. (My family has known this lady for a loooong time; this will be our third transaction with her in as many decades.) So not only am I feeling on the verge of impoverished, I'm also feeling OLD.
Fortunately, while living behind the Rusted Iron Curtain, we saved up a nice chunk of change and will have enough for a decent down payment. Nevertheless, the sticker shock of our real estate market is brutal. It's never been a particularly rational market around here: goverment offices, tech corridors, and conspicious consumption drive up prices as a matter of course. But folks around here seem to think that it's perfectly reasonable to offer a house with two bedrooms and one full bath for over 350,000 U.S. dollars. We looked at two virtually identical houses Saturday within three blocks of each other: one had a back porch in terrible condition and the other didn't have a porch at all. The first one was asking 550K, the second one wanted 580K. They'd been on the market for over 45 days. Methinks these folks are overly ambitious.
After countless hours of net-searching and a weekend in which we saw ten houses all together, we've narrowed the field to two good candidates. Both are end-unit townhouses. The less expensive one is a hop and a skip away from the church where we got married; while nearly 100,000 bucks cheaper, it would require a certain amount of redecorating (I hated the wallpaper in the foyer) which may take more time than I'll have with a baby in the house.
The more expensive one sits right on top of a light rail station and has a master bed/bath suite with a Jacuzzi tub. It has me reeling from sticker shock and covetousness. Mmmmm...Jacuzzi...