We’ve been casually looking for another house to move to. Something that’s closer to bus lines and to a grocery store. This would be our last home; our retirement place.
I hate moving. It’s inconvenient, stressful, and messy.
There are pros and cons to us moving. The biggest con to the move is jeopardizing our non-mortgage state. Prices have steadily risen in the last three years. Although this does make our house more valuable, taxes have risen, and what we once could have bought, isn’t what we could now afford. It’s not as bad as California housing prices, but the situation is the same. Houses that you wouldn’t normally plunk down $90,000 for on a bet, are now going for at least $150,000.
Also, the new homes, those few that are just within what we could afford, are all in develops that are away from buses and stores. Of course we’d dearly love to live in one of the beautiful rural areas of Spokane, but when you don’t drive, it’s just not an option. Trust me, you don’t want to be an 80 year old going grocery shopping on your bicycle.
So our options are limited, neighborhoods are limited. There are still some nice houses, but most of what we’ve come across are older homes. Older homes aren’t bad, but they do come with some unique maintenance problems that newer homes don’t have. One home built in 1906 was recently remodeled that was in a neighborhood we liked didn’t have a basement, it had a root cellar. It was three earthen walls shored up by stonework with crude shelves and a packed earth floor. The ceiling was so low that my head was brushing the ceiling. Into this root cellar was crammed a new forced air/heating system (thank goodness it wasn’t oil) and laundry hookups.
As far as some of the basements go in old houses we’ve seen, this was much better. There were no scary nooks and crannies. No creepy pipes snaking everywhere. However, a bid had already been accepted by the buyer. This kind of ticked us off that the realtor didn’t tell us about this until AFTER we saw the house. It was a two hour waste of time.
Want to know why she didn’t say anything to us? She was angling to be our realtor in getting our house sold. Wench.
After getting home and talking, though, we decided that maybe we do need to get a realtor on our side to help us find the perfect place. We didn’t call this realtor, but spoke to one we met a few months back that impressed us.
So, we’ll see what our house is worth and whether or not she’ll be able to do what we want, in our time.
Tags: real estate
uh, why do you want to move again? I guess I didn’t get that part.
When we were looking for a house, we used a buyer’s agent; someone who specifically went looking for what we wanted, and it worked out very well for us.
I said intearct with people…not realtors! TeeHeeHee
Sorry you guys have to give up that big ole place of yours. Still no chance that richard wants to get a drivers licesne and a vehical? Of course once you guys hit 80 the same problem will come up. Hopefully you’ll find something in the right neighborhood thats small enough that you dont have to go thru the morgatge thing, but still have room for you the dogs and youre stuff. Youre street doesnt seem too far from the strip mall near you at least, do you need to move closer to the hub of spokane than that?
I’ll send along some good house vibes…with the hope you dont wind up in a traiuer or a condo.