Home-In-Fusion

Last Saturday we saw four houses that caught our attention. They were a little out of our price range (hey, so what?! why not see how affluent people live?! :)). Ignoring the money hitch, it was an exciting…and yet again a fruitless experience. Two of the houses had a potential flood problem (actually they were flooded in the past), nice area though. Our real estate agent warned us in advance, but we still wanted to see the area. Washington Crossing is so picturesque, so quiet, so history related, and so flood inclined! (Okay, maybe the picture is a little too good!)
Gorgeous homes. Expensive. My husband is an avid fisherman, (or so he says:)), and Washington Crossing has been a long coveted area.

The first house we saw was one of the best houses we’ve seen so far. The real value of the house was much more than the asking price (low 400K), but darn floods (and we just can’t possibly think of buying a flood insurance; very, very expensive)…What a shame! The other problem, besides the likelihood of over flooding, was that the property taxes were way too high. You know, the better the house looks, the higher the property taxes are, and you don’t have to be super smart to figure that one out. Except, see, we want to buy a nice house, but we, on the other hand, don’t want to pay a lot of taxes.:) Tough, but I hope, not impossible.

When I think about property taxes, I get mad, and how wouldn’t I. OK, let’s do this together: you buy a house, you pay a lot of money: down payment, not even mentioning the closing costs, you pay your mortgage for the next 15-20-30 years, the property is officially yours (sort of), you own it, are you still with me (just checking:)), and then, on top of all that money that you have already paid, and you still have to pay in the future, for a looooooong, long time, they want some more, in a different form - property taxes. That is just ludicrous! I’m not against property taxes in general, but what I’m trying to say here is, the darn property taxes are way too high!

The second house in the area didn’t do it for us… at all.

Anyway, so much for Washington Crossing. Unless we won the lottery, and bought a house on a hill (easy over 700K). (And there will be no flooding, guaranteed!)

The third house was somewhat interesting, a not too big split level, considerably over priced. Just a “maybe” for us.

The last house had an amazing exterior. I wish I could say the same about the interior. Otherwise, a very desirable neighborhood, excellent schools, a little backyard with a little creek, rather cute.

A house either does it for you or it doesn’t, it is as simple as that, at least according to me. And there is nothing you can do about it. Actually, there is…keep on searching until the right one comes along.

After the house viewing was over, my husband and I, accompanied by Jane, the realtor, had lunch. We like Jane, she seems like a cool person, but is she a cool real estate agent? We hope she’ll help us find a home soon. (Come on, she is a 100% Sicilian. How can you go wrong with that?!)