FRUSTRATION

Odd title when you see pictures of houses but let me start by saying that I have edited this particular post SEVEN times... so hence the word "FRUSTRATION."  The original post started by letting anyone that reads my little blog know that I had "nothing"to post... brain freeze...possibly. In a funk...yea... that was my state of mind lately. I just couldn't think of anything to post about that would be remotely interesting and then it hit me...

HOUSES

Everyone likes looking and gawking at houses, so why not show you some of the houses we were looking at house hunting in Birmingham.

No, this isn't one of "those" houses. If it were, I would have jumped at the chance to occupy this one. This little darling is the house that Diane Lane lived in for the movie "Must Love Dogs." Ahhh... the charm.

So on to the tour of the houses we did go through and see... ready.

House #1: Cute...bottom of our price range...what's not to love. Well for starters I give an A+ to photoshop for the impeccable way this house was displayed on the realtors website. Let's give applause (insert clapping) people to Photoshop. Now to get real, can we say, "tons of work and claustrophobic hallway that probably would be wide enough for our little granddaughter to go through comfortably."
House #2: Another little beauty. You could live in this one while REDOING EVERY SINGLE ROOM. Never mind that your neighbors consist of trailers, cows, and semis and probably when you were done with the remodel you would be the most expensive house in the area let alone the street. Now mind you I am NOT a snob and I prefer the country to city living, but I do have my limitations and considering how often we move, I have to think resell all the time. Again...another round of applause to photoshop.
House #3: This one actually surprised me because the picture doesn't look bad at all but in person I was taken back by how "plain" this house really was on the outside. It was on our list until last night when hubby read the covenants and that took it off.

House #4: This home we were not able to see because they wanted advanced notice. Doesn't it look like it is on a level lot? SURPRISE! The house sat lower than the street and the driveway.... Let me tell you if you have ever been to Pittsburgh with all their hills, that ain't nothing compared to Birmingham who has driveways so steep going up and going down that level lot houses should be in the same category as houses on lake front property. No kidding.

House #5: Raised ranches are not my favorite but I have to say I was impressed with this one and the lot is LEVEL. It is still on our "A" list.

House #6: This was the very first house we saw and it has FOUR acres and that is all grass. Can you imagine how long (even on a riding lawn mower) it would take to mow. This one is at the top of our price. The two major problems with this house, distance, it would take (on a good day) probably about 30 min. to get to shopping and the kitchen is large enough for one. I know we are suppose to be thinking about down sizing but I like elbow room and let's face it, everyone congregates to the kitchen, but still on the list.

This house I LOVE. I love the lay out and it is a little more home than we need. Our problems with this house: They raised the price $10,000 but left the reduced price fliers right there on the counter top. They said that reduced price was only for a Tour of Homes that was going on one weekend. Another thing, most of these developments (not only here but also in GA and NC) we have noticed, the builder/developer designs about 3-5 style of homes and just keeps building them, so there are about two dozen of this same house (different brick color) here. The lot is very small you definitely wouldn't be married to this lawn. It too is also on our list.

Now this is only a small group of the homes we have seen. Many we scratched off for one reason or another. So what do ya think? Any opinions? Comments? Thoughts? 

One thing, we can take our time right now because we still have a house to sell, but we are praying that in this market we will have some good luck there.