More Homes

Before reading this, you might want to also read my just-posted entry about the house I got but didn't want from last week. It fills in a significant event in my house-hunting experience, though I've basically moved on from it at this point.

As you might guess, this past week's events put my house-hunting on hold for a few days. Which I probably needed anyway, to keep getting over the events of the week before. But I spotted three places in the listings that I wanted to see, so today Debbi and I met up with my agent and we saw them.

Two of them turned out to be in the same complex, albeit on different streets, and the units were nearly identical.

The first place was gorgeous. Separated living and dining areas, and a decent-sized kitchen. Two master bed/bath suites on the second floor. The owners had replaced the first-floor carpet with hardwood floors, and installed A/C. There was a lovely garden in the front yard, and a small patio out back, and decks both front and back on the second floor. Plus a garage and a carport. And the location is tough to beat, too.

The other place was identical to the first, only the floor plan was a mirror-image, and didn't have the upgrades that the first did. Oddly, they are asking more for the second place than the first, and the price has already dropped twice on it. Weird.

The complex has a pool and a spa, and lots of street parking. The second unit has a better view (older houses behind the complex, versus office buildings next to the complex), but it's not a huge difference. My agent says he's sold units in the complex to people before, and it's very well-regarded.

Downsides to the first place? Well, I'd characterize the unit as "medium-sized", and I'm clearly sacrificing size for location. This is just a trade-off I'll have to decide if I want to make. Probably it is the trade-off I want to make. Also, this evening, my mind's eye sees the place as smaller than I think it really is, and darker as well, although I think I really am imagining the darkness, as the floorplan is really designed to make the place very bright. (The fronts of both units face southwest.) Both units rely on doors to the porches for ventilation, but they do have sliding screen doors, which is good from a cat standpoint. On the other hand, I'm a little wary of a townhome which has large sliding doors onto porches at both ends on both floors, without a cat-friendly window with a sill for the kitties to sit in and look out at the world. (This strikes me as being perhaps too picky, especially since I don't know what really makes my cats happy, but I do want them to be happy, wherever we end up. So I'm being careful.)

So there's a lot to like here. But I'm going to think about it.

The third place we saw is in a more remote location; not really walking distance to anything interesting. It is, however, huge. Another great floorplan, and a large deck out back with a beautiful redwood growing in it. The complex is beautifully landscaped as well, and the apartment is bright. The kitchen is enormous. So, again, it's the location-for-space trade-off. It's also an older complex, although seems very well preserved, and my agent says it looks more contemporary than many complexes of its age.

Overall, I don't think it's what I want, though. But I'm glad I saw it. Getting a better feel for what places are available is important.

The rest of the weekend was pretty busy, too. Saturday afternoon, Debbi, her sister Janine and I went to The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose. Janine, I might have mentioned, has been stranded out here due to the airline shutdown, so they've been finding ways to occupy their time.

The Tech is a scientific/discovery/exploration museum, and it struck me as being a "lite" version of The Exploratorium. The Exploratorium has many more exhibits, and seems generally more clever about what they put together, while The Tech seems to have a larger budget and has fancier exhibits (albeit with several which were down for repairs, including what looked like a really need roller coaster simulator). The Tech does have a really neat gift shop, though, which is worth a look even if you don't want to check out the museum itself. There's also an IMAX theatre, although we didn't go into that.

In the evening we got together with Debbi's friends Lisa and Michel and played Yahtzee (which I lost at badly) and I introduced them to The Great Dalmuti, which they seemed to enjoy quite a bit.

Janine finally headed off on Sunday morning, before Debbi and I looked at houses. She managed to rent a car and is driving across the continent. She was apprehensive about it - this is her first long-distance drive, I think - and it seems that I was the only one who had encouraging things to say about it. I like driving long distances, and she's going to see a lot of the country that I've never seen. I hope she has a good time.

After looking at houses, Debbi and I shopped around for a little while, and then lounged around at my place in the evening. We never did actually have a proper meal; I think Debbi felt glum after her sister's visit (post-vacation let-down or something), while I just wasn't terribly hungry. So it was something of a glum end to the day, but I understand that she's been a bit stressed out the last few days! I mean, hasn't everyone?