Do I have to change my last name?

Well, I did it. I made an offer on the house on The Hill. I emailed the contract to the owners today and as long as we can hash out the details - we've already agreed on price - then I'll be a home owner.  Here's the house:

Yes, I forgot to take a picture of it so I had to resort to google. I do have some pictures of the inside though.

They're on the memory card that's in my purse. Unfortunately, we can't download information from flash memory onto our work computers and I totally forgot to download it at home yesterday.

It is a very cute house though. It's been well cared for by the family that has owned it for all 74 years of it's life and they're happy to have someone buying it who will care for it for another 20+ years.

I'll have ample time to gush about it in the future. For now, keep your fingers crossed for me that they agree to the terms of the contract and that my inspector doesn't find anything wrong!

The American... I mean... The St. Louis Dream

This past week I had a friend tell me they had a neighbor who was putting their house on the market. Well, technically they didn't want to put it on the market but they'd already bought another house.  He said he'd talk to them if I wanted. I did because buying a house from a friend of the family is like living the St. Louis fabled life? Why?

Here's a hint:

Yeah, the house is on The Hill. In all my growing up years I heard stories of families passing down houses in that area. No house ever goes on the market on The Hill unless the people die without family; that's what we always heard. Ok, so that's an exaggeration.

Kind of.

I mean houses don't go on the market a lot there and this one is owned by a relative of the builder so I'm hoping it's in nice shape. I get to see it Saturday.

It's brick - duh - with a brick two car garage and room for a tomato garden in the yard. Yup, they actually added that. I'm trying not to be too excited. But, I kinda am.

House hunting shouldn't be this hard

A friend of mine at work told me house hunting shouldn't be that hard. After all, they pretty much stand still and let you walk right up on them, right?

yeah....

I'm going tonight for the second round of showings in the city. The SoHa and Noha ones went ok. But out of six houses, I'm only leaving one on the list. One was cheap, but totally trashed.... way too much work. One was flipped but the kitchen was done weirdly. The rest of it was nice and they used nice materials in the kitchen, but they didn't connect the fridge with the counter that held the sink or either one of those with the counter that held the stove. They didn't want to cover up the bottom of the windows. Weird.

Tonight we're travelling all over the city from Southwest Garden all the way down to Holly Hills.

Wish me luck.... Hopefully one of these six will be a keeper!