the quest for our home

so...no photos of said home to post...just thought i would free associate this process and pros/cons since we are likely to put an offer on a home in the next couple of days.

this weekend we drove by my favorite home in south park (also my favorite neighborhood) and learned that it was in escrow...they were asking 200k more than we hoped to pay for a home so by definition this was a "dream" and not something we should even be driving by twice...oh but allow me to dream for just a quick moment...walking distance to yoga, a coffee shop, deli, several friends in coop, a few blocks from a great park/playground and only a mile away for manuel to commute to work downtown. most of the homes in this neighborhood are much more so in that sense it would be a good investment but really this home didn't have a lot of improvements that needed to be done and we couldn't afford it anyway...so that takes us back to reality...so we were driving through north park on our way to look at some homes in the college area...happened to drive by an open house for a 3 bedroom/2 bath spanish style home in an area of north park that i really like...refinished hardwood floors throughout, lots of windows and built-ins, a decent yard, detached garage...again, in a walking neighborhood to several friends, bird park (concerts in the park), shopping, restaurants, etc. was one of my biggest pulls to this area. more diversity, lots of children, good central location near downtown, the beach, balboa park, etc...downsides were only 1 real bath (the second one was a converted closet), not very much storage space, much smaller square footage both in house size and yard than what we last put an offer on, some of the "diversity" was also questionable, not a lot to redo (this being a plus right now but a minus when we want to get more equity out of the house later) and i'm not too impressed with mckinley elementary right down the street...thought we would likely send sea to private school or at least a charter school but walking to a neighborhood public school with several friends living nearby was really growing on me...

so anyway, manuel really liked this house, too, which surprised me since he was ready to rule out north park due to less space for the money. he even talked about being ready to put in an offer...so then we drove into a new area and he wrote down the realtor's number on a house i had ruled out due to "weird yard" "too brady bunch/ugly curb appeal" issues...he said he could get us in to see this house on sunday. we had plans to go to the beach for the day and then celebrate birthdays/our wedding anniversary with friends but decided it was worth checking out.

fast forward to yesterday, our fifth wedding anniversary, video camera rolling we entered the home. i didn't have any immediate emotional breakdown like "this is an emergency situation" or breaking in to tears crying like i did for the south park house (built in 1907 but in immaculate condition--craftsman, all hardwood floors, built-ins, etc)