How to House Hunt

Currently, we live two blocks from each other in a very cool neighborhood with no zoning. Thus, we refer to it as the "all rent district"... government subsidized housing next to million dollar homes. It's quite unique. We wanted desperately to stay in said neighborhood when we moved into a new place.

We had certain criteria on top of location. We've given up driving whenever possible so our new home had to be in walking or biking distance of most everything. We were also looking for a yard for our dog (or at least a place that would accept dogs... that was tricky). We wanted a porch, a place to store our bikes, a washer/dryer, enough room for my at-home workspace, and oh, yeah, a low, low price.

We used a realtor and good ol' craigslist to come upon our awesome place. Ironically, it's around the corner from our church. It's the bottom floor (we have an upstairs neighbor) of a 1920s Victorian house and met every single requirement we had. No dishwasher, but since FH will be doing the dishes and he doesn't care about that, no worries.

I'm not really into urban renewal and gentrification. I understand tearing down beat up, abandoned houses that really can't be saved. But getting rid of perfectly quality houses just because they aren't new just makes me sad. My grandmother is the last original owner on her street, having lived in her house over 50 years. Two-story new construction houses are going up around her, and I want to stand in front of the wrecking-ball so her house won't go down.

Anyway, back to our house. Our upstairs neighbor has lived there a while and told us some of the history (I love history!). Apparently our neighborhood was the site of a very large state fair back in the day, and he assumes our house (which looks identical to many on the street from the same era) was a boarding house for folks who spent a few weeks at the fair. Given the extremely odd layout of the place, that makes sense. He's also convinced it might be haunted, but I don't believe in ghosts, so we're good.

It's so fun to imagine the stories of the lives of people who have lived in our place the past 80+ years. What a story to build on for our first home together.