Shopping for a house Take Two

After coming to terms with our dream house for now $45,000!!! not being in the cards Kate and I set out with fresh eyes to see what could be seen. We are still focusing our search on Irvington and Fountain Square with me leaning towards FS and Kate leaning towards IRV. Our wonderful realtor Karen sent us a long list of possible houses and we narrowed it down to about 8 that we wanted to look at.

After work we met up with Karen and started phase two. The first house was nice on the outside but really strange inside. First off there was some one renting it out and they were sitting in the living room watching Opera while we scrounged around their stuff. Maybe it was the strange walls or maybe the creepy person in the living room but that wasn't the right place. Next we had 3 houses in a row that looked as if they would fall down at any moment and we quickly passed on those and moved on to 1230 Woodlawn Ave.

The picture does not do this house justice. There are 3 small bedrooms down stairs, a living room, dining room, entry way, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs and an attic that runs the length of the house upstairs. The attic is unfinished but huge and we saw our bedroom up there right away. Downstairs there are 12 foot ceilings and old hard wood floors covered with burbur carpet. The windows are about 6 feet high and start about a foot off the ground. Both of us really liked this place a lot. It was equal parts livable and potential and we were both able to see what was and what soon could be with a little elbow grease and the right kind of friends (mark, bing, chuck, meg, marv, kris.....)

We then called the Mortgage people to explore some options and move forward towards putting an offer on this house in the next month or so. The next day some one else put in an offer and we had until noon the next day to put in an offer ourselves. It is odd, the pace of life, some times. We talked with the mortgage people, our parents, our realtor, and each other and came up with an offer that was accepted! We are now in what 90% of the US calls escrow but what Indiana calls simply Closing.

We need to get the house, built in 1900, inspected, we need to set up home owners insurance, and we need to gather up all the loan materials that our broker needs to finish up the mortgage before our June 30 close date. Oh by the way we are moving out of our apartment downtown on May 31, Kate is starting a new job, I am going to school and interviewing for jobs, and we will commuting two hours each day. It's a good thing Lost, Alias, and Desperate Housewives have had their season finales otherwise we might be really busy.