as long as he lived, taking the winding drive to the house would always warm his heart and feel like home

    Today was the open house for the best possibility so far, in terms of a home for me to buy. It went on the market on Tuesday, seemed to be priced right, judging by the pictures and for the neighborhood. (I know about the pictures because pretty much any house that's for sale now has multiple photos available on multiple websites; just web-search the address or, like I do, use Realtor.com to see what's out there in a given area.) I was really feeling good about this one.
     Alas.
     The asking price is $A. It seems to me that it is actually a $A+$25,000 house, so buying it for $A is not the great deal that it seems to be. It will take at least that $25,000 more to bring it up to its potential, to solve some of the material issues, and to address the myriad cosmetic hurdles in place. It's not a bad house, and the neighborhood is wonderful. It's just far more work than I am wanting to do, to make something mine. I'm not lazy, but I'm also not skilled labor in many ways. It will probably cost me more than it would someone experienced in such things, to make my eventual home just right--simply because I lack experience or ability in some areas.
     So, if I can start out with a house that's $A, or even $A+$10,000, but where it is pretty well ship-shape (or just needs some paint and TLC), then I'm going to be a much happier buyer.
     Back to the ads.

[the title quotation is by Alex Morgan]