Update on Housing Hunt

I'm planning to write more about this soon already wrote it all in this post in the end, but I'll be back after we get to see even more houses tomorrow. I wanted to let you know that you were right, that yes, indeed, we have seen better townhomes than the one we "lost." There's just one catch -- these cost 30K more... than that one and the same price as the only single family home with a large yard in a corner lot that we're still interested in. It's going to be a very tough decision, I tell you.

Like my first post about this subject, aptly titled Finding the One, last week I was telling my mom that house hunting has a lot to do with falling in love and meeting prospective love interests. We just think about these houses all the time, it's almost unnerving. I got breaks from thinking about them for a few hours at a time, since I was concentrating really hard on finishing some dissertation chapters, but I spent the first part of the weekend quite anxious, thinking that we'd have to make a decision and make an offer to that townhome. These decisions are quite scary since they involve a large sum of money and the comfort and well being of the whole family!! That's why after feeling some anger and frustration at loosing that home I felt relieved. But my relieve didn't last long.

As this soccer metaphor we use in Brazil conveys so well, what we saw yesterday "embolou o meio de campo" (something like the players are all stuck in midfield and the game can't progress).

Yesterday, I fell in love with this beautiful, basically perfect townhome. This was after (1) viewing this other spacious townhome with four levels of living and a perfect floor plan on the first floor (an enclosed formal dining area and kitchen in the back, not connected to the rest of the house), (2) revisiting the perfectly finished single family home on 1 acre of land and finally deciding that it is gorgeous indeed, but not what we want (the pack of information they had to prospective buyers had a sheet itemizing the improvements that were made -- they spent 102 thousand dollars on that home, we're so sorry for them, since they've just lowered the price a second time), and (3) revisiting the one single family home we're still interested in -- a home in a cookie cutter neighborhood with the huge corner lot (which, by the way, slopes down and was really really wet and swampy yesterday -- NOT a plus!).

Then we set out on our own to see this one on our list that had an open house (our agent had an open house herself and had to go).This perfectly located home (very close to K's new work and with easy access to the nearest highway) is full of light, airy and incredibly spacious. The rooms are huge, there's a walk in closet in the master bedroom that's the size of a small bedroom, the laundry on the second floor is in an actual room that you can walk into and close the door, not like those laundries that are just behind a set of folding doors, and there's a huge finished loft in the fourth floor... it's just enormous. And besides, it was painted in pastel colors, which I adore (light green and blue, and the same peach color of our own living room in the loft). It has a garage, a lovely corner whirlpool under the master bathroom's window, and the view is also beautiful (even though there's a highway far in the back and we can hear the cars passing by).

However, there was another open house in the same complex and then it was my husband's turn falling in love with a different home, one I didn't like quite as much! He hated the floor plan of the 1st floor of the house I loved and in this second one he thought it was perfect (he's all about the floor plans, I've already told you that, right?). Besides, whereas the basement in the previous one had no egress (exit) and had been sloppily half finished (this, I own, is the only small defect of that home), this home's has a small a walk out basement with two windows and sliding doors -- unfinished, perfect for just going ahead and easily finishing. Because of this glaring disagreement (the first one so far in this venture), I spent the drive home frowning and pouting and thinking that I liked the first home better while K would just look at me and smile or laugh, which was a bit annoying ;).

So, that's where we're at right now. I concede that I didn't like the second one partly because it was mostly painted in very dark colors that I didn't like, but it's not really bad. The large kitchen/ dining are (could also be a sun room) have nice hardwood floors, and the garage is larger than the previous home. Besides it's a few (5) thousand dollars cheaper than the other one (not cheaper enough in my point of view, but it's a plus, particularly because they lowered the price). Oh, and it didn't help that the first one had the sun shining through all the windows and its back was to a beautiful open grassy area with a lovely view of hills (the highway is not very visible because there are small trees and bushes) while the second had no sunshine and backed to the backyards of some cookie cutter single homes (some with playsets), making it even more evident that we didn't have a yard and they did. (and the second one had neither a loft nor a whirlpool tub :)

Oh I'm sorry, but I don't have any more photos of the new homes for you because these were open houses and I felt I shouldn't be taking photos. And now I'm annoyed because I can't "revisit" these last two houses, only in my mind and from my recollections. We're going back there tomorrow, though, and then I'll take them.

Tomorrow, the next chapter... and I'll try to do the Thinking Blogger Award Meme posts later today (if, and only if, I get to finish one more dissertation chapter).