A Hunting I Will Go
Today was the first day that I went to look for a house. More specifically, this weekend I am looking at new construction since it’s the easiest stuff to get to (although I’m hoping to find a perfectly good used home - do you call it used? preowned?).
Some notes:
1. Most of the salespeople didn’t really seem to take me seriously. I didn’t really dress very well today so maybe that was part of it, or the fact that I didn’t roll in with a family. This was a little bit annoying but actually worked out to my advantage because I didn’t have to leave my info with anyone. So if I find something I like I can come back with my agent and she can drop the hammer on them to get me a good deal. Take that salespeople and your bad judgement!
2. I found the place I would want to live in, but unfortunately it cannot be. It’s a gated community called Rivendell, and it’s all named after the Lord of the Rings - there’s streets called Mirkwood, Arwen, Elendil, Elessar, and Bag End. Now…who wouldn’t want to live in this development? However, it’s significantly more than I can afford (and the dude at the sales office seemed more than happy to inform me of that fact with a little bit of a sneer). Hopefully someone will offer a Dragonlance community (”Ansalon” or “Solace” would be good names) at a lower price point and I can move in there instead. Developers, are you listening? I would immediately buy a house on any of the following: Kitiara Drive, Fireforge Avenue, Majere Brothers Street, or even Tanis Half-Elven Lane. Thank you.
3. The wackiest housing award goes to Ryland Homes, which is building 3-story homes with rooftop decks. You can interpret this two ways: a developer being greedy because they can jam more houses together, or something cool and new. I’ll take it as a mix of both. The rooftop deck is simply awesome - the development I looked in had a clear line of sight to the Strip, and I would absolutely enjoy it for the 4-5 months out of the year where it would be tolerable to hang out outdoors. And I really like Ryland’s aesthetic - their fit/finish is nice and the model home decorator are stylistically close to what I want. But they literally feel like stacked shoeboxes (sort of like Philly rowhouses or NYC brownstones where you get one room per floor), and like my agent said, that means there is no place for guest cars to park on the street. So I think I am going to pass.
3. After awhile everything starts to look the same. I have to do a better job of keeping notes on which is which.
Finally, the highlight of the day was the discovery of a Dunkin’ Donuts near where I currently live. I foresee many trips to this Dunkin’ Donuts in the near future. After 10 years of crap LA donuts (and please don’t tell me about Randy’s, their donuts suck too) I’m ready to make up for lost time.
Next week I am going to tackle my agent and try to get her to show me some used places, so tonight I slogged through various Websites looking at listings. I thought it was going to be lots of fun, but it’s turning out to be a lot of work due to the sheer number of places for sale. There are a shi*tload of places for sale in Las Vegas, a lot of which are ugly and previously occupied by people with bad taste. Real estate listings sites are generally no picnic either from a usability perspective.
That’s it. It’s 11pm. I think I’m gonna go get something to eat and then call it a night.
