Learning to be realistic - or - Learning to be poor

Looking for houses isn't that much fun. It's time consuming, exhausting, and depressing. Depressing because I have to recognize that we aren't going to buy my dream home. We can't afford it. We will probably never be able to afford it.

We really aren't making this easy on ourselves, anyway. We want to live in an older area of town. This area has cute little bungalows and cape cods, sidewalks, old trees, everything that is homey and inviting. An unfortunate thing about the area is that not very many people want to leave. There aren't many homes for sale there. Of the homes that are for sale, either they have been renovated and cost way too much, or they have not been renovated, but are livable, and still cost too much, or they have not been renovated, have cats and rats living in them, and are in our price range. I really don't want to live with cats and rats. Here's a little sampling of the homes for sale:

The house on the left costs about $400,000. The house on the right costs $214,000. The house on the left is lovely and nice and renovated. The house on the right has rats and mold. The house on the right is assessed at $300,000, though. Someone with an extra $50,000 is going to make a killing on that house someday, but that someone is not us.

The house on the left costs $320,000. The house on the right costs $250,000. The house on the left is cozy and clean. The house on the right has cat poo on the floor. Seriously, we walk in to look at the house and it smelled so rank. The house on the left has a two car garage. The house on the right is tiny and has bedrooms that we couldn't fit our bed in.

The house on the left costs $439,000. The house on the right costs $165,000. I love the house on the left. I do not love the house on the right. You cannot find pictures of the inside of the house on the right, and the listing says "needs tlc." Probably also has rats and cats and mold.

The house on the left costs $350,000. The house on the right costs around $250,000. The house on the left is adorable. The house on the right is not so adorable. But I'll tell you the truth: we might put an offer in on it.

Yikes! A 1977 split level??? I would never in my wildest dreams thought that one day I might buy a house like that. I know it's not the loveliest house, but it is in really good condition, which I can't say about the other houses in our price range. It has a really big yard. It has a really big garage for Mr. Wright to do all his manly man things in. It doesn't have a lot of rooms, but every room is quite large. Quite. It is in entirely livable condition. We wouldn't have to do anything to move in. All the work that needs to be done is cosmetic.

The yard is overgrown, but we could rip out everything and plant grass seed in a day. I can paint all the dark molding and doors. Someday, new windows, but the current ones are completely serviceable. Someday, new bathrooms. We'll see how long I can tolerate dark brown tiles. Of course, we'll try to keep as much of the retro funk as we possibly can. You just have to get it right, like my sister-in-law did with her funky new table. Oh, and on the side of the house, we have those really cool tall, skinny windows with yellow wavy glass in them. Hot.

Right. We'll keep you posted.