A funny thing just happened.
As you know, John and I have been planning on buying a second house in Santa Fe. I’ve been working with a fairly large budget because Santa Fe is expensive, and we had in mind that the new house would be approximately similar in “niceness” to his that we’re remodeling on the hill. The plan was to put all my new income toward the new house, and then eventually when we retired, we would just sell one of the houses (because we have to finance this one, and we’re going to retire before a large 30-year mortgage would be paid off, so something would have to be sold).
I found one house I liked, but I had just started looking, and it had already been on the market for a few days by the time that I started looking. So it sold before I had a chance to make an offer on it. I was bummed! But after I got over the initial disappointment, I realized it was more than I wanted to spend anyway.
I don’t know if you all know how obsessive I can get, but when I’m looking for a house, there’s not a single piece of property on the market that I don’t know about. But suddenly I noticed a really intriguing little townhome, and it had already been on the market for 24 hours. That’s a long time in a hot market. I emailed my agent immediately.
My agent is good, and will nix anything that I shouldn’t bother to look at. This townhome is very small, and very cheap, and somewhat run-down, so I expected her to say, “Uh-uh. Delete.” (Which she had done several times before for other inexpensive properties.) Eventually (it seemed like a long time, but it wasn’t), she got back to me and said she’d go look at it for me. An hour or two later she called back and said, “You’ve got to get up here right now.”
It’s not that this townhome is any kind of exceptional deal (there’s rarely exceptional deals in real estate). It’s just that different people are different regarding what feels like home to them. I want high ceilings and lots of light. I want to look out my windows and see trees, and not be looking right at block walls or right into my neighbor’s windows. I want the same kind of flooring in the entire house (and not carpet). I want a private backyard without any neighbors looking down into it. I don’t want to hear the freeway from my backyard. I want somewhere to walk the dogs and jog safely away from traffic. I want an upscale or “natural” grocery store nearby. I want to be within a few miles of my job.
This is a long list, and it usually takes a fair amount of money to check the boxes on that list. Yet here is this cheap little townhome, checking all the boxes. How could that be? Could I really get away with spending only half of my budget and still be happy with the house?
Here’s the marketing write-up, “Darling, single-level townhome with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and a 1-car garage in a quiet, secluded subdivision. Home features a light, open floor plan with high ceilings, kiva fireplace and concrete floors with radiant heat. Recent upgrades include a new roof and hot water heater in 2016. Located close to all shopping, restaurants and the Arroyo de los Chamisos Urban Trail.”
I’m a total sucker for the words “close to…trail” in a write-up. LOL.
The townhome was showing fast and furiously. But no offers so far, after two days. Why would that be? For one thing, there’s no air conditioning. That would have to be added and there’s no existing ductwork because it’s in-floor radiant heat (which I love) instead of a gas furnace. Also it’s been a rental for 10 years and feels older than it is. It’s only 20 years old. But it feels tired and dated. I think that it being a bit rundown doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers most buyers. Which, by the way, is probably how I keep getting myself into these remodel situations. Ya think?!?
Actually, I know what you think. You’re thinking, “Would you stop yapping and put up some pictures already?” Ok, here we go.
It’s attached on one side to one other house (like a duplex), but it’s called a townhome because only one of the units is for sale.
There’s just one dining/living space. I love the vigas (ceiling beams). The kiva (fireplace) needs repainted – I’d do it a slightly darker shade, but not as dark as the floors. The floors are stained concrete, and I love them!
These are great pictures the listing agent took. But the reality is, this room is small, and a bit grungy. But it has cuteness potential 😉
Here’s the kitchen. It’s smaller than it looks like in the picture, dated, and also grungy close-up. But it could be cute. And a gas stove, yay!
This next shot makes the house look twice the size that it actually is, LOL. That’s the little kitchen, with the front door to the left, a hall closet, and the hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms.
The master bedroom has a small walk-in closet (I don’t think it’s big enough to actually walk INTO, but it’s that shape at least). And there’s a small, but full bathroom with tub, and a window to the backyard.
It’s impossible for me not to think about potential upgrades, like replacing that window with a glass door to the back patio. And that closet definitely needs built-ins (sooner rather than later). Here’s the view to the backyard.
Here’s the other bedroom. I’d need to use that closet for the other half of my clothes, LOL.
Here’s something I love about the house. This is open space belonging to the HOA (home owners association), for drainage, located between this house and the neighboring house. This is what’s outside the living room windows. Trees!!
What I see when I look at out the windows is a big deal to me, because I hate having the blinds down.
Here’s the backyard. It’s small (I keep using that word), but it’s pretty and private and fully fenced. With trees!
I would want to paint the back wall and retaining wall a darker color. But note all the trees behind the wall on the back neighbor’s property!
This next picture is what’s on the other side of the back wall. Is that amazing, or what? The perfect rear neighbor. (I was standing on the retaining wall to take this shot, the ground can’t actually be seen from the main section of the backyard, just the tree branches).
The pergola needs a new covering, LOL, it’s a broken mess. But that’s easy to fix. (Right, John?)
Kira’s favorite thing (other than jumping into the fish pond, which I don’t have anymore), is rolling in the dirt and dashing inside. So I’d want to add landscaping when possible.
Here’s what it looks like across the street. Isn’t that pretty?
Here’s the mailboxes. The street is mostly small townhomes, a few are 2-story, and most of the yards are well kept.
One last fantastic thing about this house…the trail. It’s located half a block away.
Here’s the arroyo alongside the trail.
Great place to bike ride or jog or dog walk.
Oh, and one more thing. Did I mention this house is only 5 miles from my new office?
Also there’s a Sprouts market within walking distance! And a World Market. And a Sam’s club. And anything else you’d want, about half a mile away. The Natural Grocers (my favorite) is one mile away by car, but only about a quarter of mile if you walk across the arroyo. And just a little farther up the street is Meow Wolf! And Jackalope! And an Indian restaurant, and an African restaurant!
(The townhouse is not marked in this screenshot, but it’s in the lower right, just on the other side of the arroyo.)
You may be wondering what John thinks of this place. You’d think that he would be ecstatic that I fell in love with a house that only costs HALF of our budget! This townhome is literally half the price of those fancy houses I posted about a couple of days ago. But he’s wary. He’s worried that because I’m not spending very much, that I won’t actually end up liking the townhome, so pretty soon I’d want to buy yet another, more expensive, house. I can’t imagine why he’d think that. Can you imagine why he’d think that? Who would do that?
Yeah. I would. So I’m not promising that down the road someday, when things have changed, that I’d never want to buy another piece of property ever again. But I can tell you that I like this little place, and I’d be happy living there during the week instead of commuting every day.
So? Did I buy it? Yep, I made an aggressive offer. By that I mean, I offered a high price and wrote the offer to expire very quickly (less than 24 hours), so they couldn’t just sit on it and collect more bids without risking losing my good offer. If this property had been overpriced, or sitting on the market, or if the market was slow (like Placitas) I would lowballed it. But not in this case. And…
WE ARE UNDER CONTRACT! Assuming it passes inspections (which you can never assume), we’ll be the proud owners of a Santa Fe townhome at the end of October.
Here’s a piece of trivia for you (if you’re not already really, really tired of reading this long, detailed post). Do you remember that first house we bought in California, the one that I didn’t like and so we bought another, much more expensive house, two months later and it need a complete remodel? (right. that happened. that’s why he’s worried.)
Anyway, the trivia is, the street name for the house that I never liked was, “El Padro” which just annoyed us to no end, because it doesn’t really mean anything in Spanish (perhaps a variant of Pedro or Padre) and was most likely, simply a typo. And people would automatically correct it to “Prado” which is a common Spanish place name meaning park or meadow. (Prado Museum, etc.) We always assumed “Padro” was supposed to have been “Prado”. So guess what street the new townhouse is on? “Vista del Prado” (view of the park). So I hope I don’t get confused and say “Padro” out of habit and sound like an idiot!
