Four houses, 3.5 strikes

Here’s where we are, one week into the hunt for our new home:

House #1: Huge, and sorta within the price range. Problem was, it was built in the early 80’s, and the inside hadn’t been updated, at all. The bathrooms were tiled, floor to ceiling in medium brown tile, the fixtures were dark brown, and the kitchen was a mix of brown tile and dull avocado green cabinetry. The drive was interesting; the house sits at the top of a hill on the north side of the river, and I know that the roads leading to the house through this residential area have been there since before there were cars, they’re that narrow and curvy. There was a terrace, but no yard, and the neighbors’ house was just on the other side of the bushes from the terrace. Strike #1.

House #2: Big (not huge), too modern, and in an industrial park behind a warehouse and office space. For the owner/builders, this made sense since they had a business in the warehouse and office space. For us, makes no sense, but we looked at the house anyway. Aside from the obvious warehouse issue, it was weirdly modern, with red plastic door handles, and a front door that was red on the inside. However, the strangest part had to be the large built-in fountain in the middle of the dining/living room area. What the heck? I can just see Shadow having a daily morning swim, and there would always be water all over the floor because he’d play in it all the time. Strike #2.

House #3: We didn’t actually get to see this one up close and personal, because someone else got to it first. It did look perfect though, even if it was a bit more of a house than we really wanted to pay for. Perfect that is, until I noticed that you could see train tracks through the windows by the front door, and they were right across the narrow street in front of the house. And we’re not talking a little streetcar here, but a high speed Deutsche Bahn train! Sheesh. Strike #3.

House #4: We have an appointment for this one tomorrow. It’s definitely more than we wanted to spend, and a little bit far out, but dang, it’s HUGE. It looks like somebody transplanted it from America really. It doesn’t look like a typical German style building. I kept looking at the pictures though, and wondering why the front yard wasn’t a yard; it’s all done in the brick type ground cover that is so prevalent for driveways and such here.

The realtor gave us the address so that we can meet him and the owner there tomorrow, and we looked it up on Google Earth to see what the area was like. We saw these strange buildings around the house, one in front of it and one to the side, and both too large to be homes. Turns out, the building in front of the house is a supermarket, and the one on the side is a car dealership of some sort with a repair shop as well. I guess this is why the front yard is just a big driveway, since the “yard” is basically the back of the supermarket from what I can tell. *sigh* Who in their right mind builds a nice big house in a place like that? So, this house may be Strike #4, but since we’re still going to look at it, we’ll call it Strike #3.5 for now.

I feel like I’m missing some important bit of information here that’s keeping me from even getting close to success, but I can’t imagine what it could be. I find what look to be wonderful houses, and then they have some major flaw. Not just a little “we can live with it” kind of issue, but a major, show-stopping flaw, or two or three little things that add up to a major “no.” We will visit the housing office on Monday in Heidelberg, but from what I hear, they have a lot of row houses and duplexes on their lists. Um, not for me, unless there’s no other choice. Although, that “no other choice” moment may come sooner rather than later, at the rate we’re going.

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