House Hunting

I really thought we'd found it this morning.

We've been looking for about a month, off and on, at houses, hopefully in preparation to buy a house. Our plan has been to rent in Portland for a year and then buy, having had a chance to figure out where we'd like to live for the next umpteen years. Yes, we are hoping to finally put down some roots and stay awhile.

When we moved here almost a year ago we were so hopeful that we'd have no trouble finding a house to buy. Housing prices were *so* much lower than San Francisco's. We were used to high prices, so we should be able to find something, even though everyone was saying that housing prices were so high here. Not compared to San Francisco! we'd smugly reply.

The first house we looked at was truly cute. I could really have lived with the house itself. Just the right size, if you include the basement (which we could have fixed up cute). I loved the location. But the yard was non-existent. One of my big goals is to have enough space for a big garden. I'd like to grow most of my vegetables eventually. So, even though the house was so cute (the kitchen was really nice) we passed that one by. (Though it's still for sale, so we could change our minds.)

We've looked on our own since then, and when we want to see the inside we call April to let us in. (I always thought realtors were supposed to do the footwork for you, but it's been me finding most of the interesting houses.) We went in a huge old farmhouse with tons of character. I really loved it. Except that when we were all in the upstairs bedroom, and April jumped up and down, we all said, "don't do that!" It just didn't feel stable. And when we went into the dirt basement we could see why.

Last night I found, online (of course), a house *right off Alberta!* NE Alberta is a very hip and happening street, between 15th and 33rd. It was on 22nd. I went and looked at the outside last night. Red flags went off when I saw that the seller was one of those companies that advertises "We Buy Houses!" I should have had second thoughts, but I was willing to continue the illusion. I could also see that all of the improvements made to this house were outside, not inside, from looking in the windows. But we called April today and went and saw it. When we got there, April said that if she'd gotten there early she would have called us and told us to forget it. It was in such bad shape. It was built in 1906, and the only thing inside that had been improved were to put in new kitchen cabinets. ??? What's that about? The foundation was crumbling. I was *so* disappointed. It would have been a perfect location.

After that, we went and saw a house that some fellow homeschoolers are selling. The house is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Nice yard. Nice to not have to use realtors and have them take a chunk of the profits. But it's way in North Portland, far from the church. Not so far that if it had other things going for it we wouldn't consider it. And we are, because we like the house so much. But it's not in an urban area, which is what we wanted. It's kind of close to Lombard, which is a busy thoroughfair with big businesses on each side. Not exactly what we were looking for.

I'm discouraged. I'm not sure we're going to find a house we can afford, in an area we want to be in.