South Valley house

John and I are all over the map about houses. That’s what the exploratory phase is all about, right? We’re starting to look into where we want to live after John retires. I think we’ve narrowed it down to New Mexico, as long as we can be somewhere else during a lot of the first half of each year (after I’ve retired). A big unknown is how long I’ll work after he retires.

Option 1 – Placitas house on the hill (which we currently own).

  • Pros: amazing views, sentimental value, solar panels, already own it.
  • Cons: No trees, incredibly windy, too far for me to commute.

Option 2 – Nambe house.

  • Pros: tons of New Mexican character, in the cottonwood trees, a long commute for me.
  • Cons: Would need to build a garage and a courtyard, older section needs work.

Option 3 – Southwest Albuquerque (more details below).

  • Pros: It has a pool! Irrigation rights! Trees! Outdoor kitchen. Standard, boring, nice interior that doesn’t need any remodeling.
  • Cons: Standard, boring, nice interior. Flat landscape. Waaaay too far to commute, I would have to continue occupying my Santa Fe townhome during the weekdays as long as I was working in Santa Fe.

The funny thing about this one is it doesn’t even look like it’s in New Mexico. I’m not sure if that’s a pro or a con. Maybe some of both? It’s got a ridiculous amount of grass. I could spend the rest of my life replacing that grass with trees, bushes and meandering pathways (this actually sounds appealing to me, UNLIKE REMODEL PROJECTS!)

The crazy thing about this house is it looks like it would cost a shit-ton of money, but it doesn’t. All three houses are worth just about exactly the same amount. This house is the same as what I would expect to sell the Placitas house for, now that we’re almost done with the remodel. It costs slightly more than the one in Nambe, but by the time we built a garage and courtyard at the Nambe house, Nambe would come out more expensive than this one. Of course if this house were in Santa Fe, it would cost 10 times what it costs down south of Albuquerque.

This is in the northern section of what’s called the “South Valley.” It’s a very mixed, rural area, a floodplain of the Rio Grande. The schools are awful and it has a poor reputation. It also has large lots, and some very nice homes. It’s on city water but irrigated with a well – best of both worlds. Unfortunately I expect it’s directly under the flight path to the airport (it’s about 6 miles west of the airport, on the other side of the Rio Grande). So it would be important to check that out.

The entire acre appears to be fully fenced.

Speaks for itself…

Covered outdoor kitchen

This looks like a gas fireplace like we had at the Hampton house.

Entry courtyard

A bit too much like California…

Very well staged. Don’t expect it to look like that with us in it, lol.

Couple steps down the the family room. Dates it to the late 1990’s, oh well.

Gas stove, island, open concept.

1990’s style gas fireplace in the master bedroom.

Good sized master bath

Is that an actual real laundry room and not a walk-thru?

What a crazy amount of grass. This is the back yard. There’s even more grass in the front.

This is the front yard. What exactly would one do with all that flat space? Knowing us, we’d start building things! Don’t even go there. La-la-la, pretend there’s not a half-acre front yard.