Houses, Houses, Everywhere

“My horse for a castle”.

Isn’t that how the saying goes? No? Well, close enough.

The Lovely Mrs. G. and I spent all day Saturday looking for a new home here in Omaha. Our house in Sioux City hasn’t sold yet, but we’re trying to be optimistic and think like “home buyers” instead of “home buyers who need to dump their place first.”

We were pretty specific in what we were looking for in a house, and we’ve got a good Realtor helping us out, so at 11:00 yesterday we showed up at the real estate office, where our agent handed us a list of 20 houses to see.

20 houses? In one afternoon? Are you kidding?

Okay, it’s partially my fault. I e-mailed her a list of places we’d like to see, and she arranged for us to see them. ALL.

In the end we made it to about 10 or so – a couple of them we eliminated as we went, and a couple of them we crossed off at the advise of our agent. (It’s nice to have the advice of someone who lives here and knows what is a “good” neighborhood or not.) It was fun, but by the end the houses were starting to blend together – now, which one had the walk-in closets and which one had the finished basement?

Still, the process has been pretty fun. (Much more fun than the first time we did this, 9 years ago.) And we’ve learned a lot of things while touring people’s homes:

1) A lot of people out there have bars in their houses. Of the 10 houses we went into, I’d say that at least 6 of them – maybe as high as 8 – had a bar in the basement. Do people really drink that much? They must. Mrs. G. and I rarely drink, so I don’t know what I’d do with a house that has its own bar in it. (One bar even had a beer tap built in.) Maybe I’d convert it to a soda fountain – maybe I’d rip the sucker out and use the space for something else. But I’m certainly not about to invite Norm and Cliff over for a cold one every evening…

2) If you’re going to sell your house, and you know people are coming over to see it, maybe you ought to tidy up the place a little bit. One place had really filthy nasty bathrooms. (They even grossed me out, the guy who tends to ignore such things until Mrs. G. blows a fuse and makes him clean up his mess.) Another place had a bed with a wad of clothes hidden under the blankets – it looked like a body. There was another place where you walked through the door and sniff, sniff – they’ve got DOGS! Two words: Fe-Breeze. So maybe it wouldn’t kill you to kill you to pick up a dust rag and scrub brush if you want to make a good first impression, no?

3) You may have loved that wallpaper, and you may have spent several weekends picking out the right pattern and hanging it, but be warned – Mrs. G. and I will be ripping that crap off the walls at first opportunity. So don’t feel bad.

But like I said, it’s been a (mostly) good experience. And yes – we’ve found a house that we like a lot. It’s got everything we’re looking for, and then some. It’s also got a pretty high asking price, so we’ll have to see what we can do about that. But if it’s “the” house that’ll make our dreams come true for the next 20-25 years, then it’s worth it.

Now we only need our place in Sewer City to sell, and then we’re on our way. For now, we’ll keep our house clean and pretty, and wait for the right buyer to come in and fall in love with it, like we did in 1999.

And if that doesn’t work, then maybe I’ll have to add a bar to the basement.