buy a house, i'll lend you a cup of sugar

One of the things I like about this neighborhood is that it hasn't really 'boomed' yet. House prices are still reasonable (okay, for Baltimore, they are, anyway -- I can buy a mansion in my hometown for the price of a townhouse around here), and the neighborhood is safe and quiet. It's the sort of neighborhood people actually grow up in and spend a long time in (hello, Don lives ten blocks away from the house he grew up in... IN the house his father grew up in!).

A mildly morbid family story: when Don's parents were looking to buy a house for themselves and the various children (I think Don's mom was either pregnant with him or just about to be, plus there were the two older kids and a younger one yet to come, not that they knew about her yet), they were living in a townhouse on the other side of the main neighborhood drag and both were members of the volunteer fire department (they actually got married in the firehouse). The elderly woman who owned a certain house passed away, and they were the ones who got the ambulance call to go get her (deceased already). That's how they found out that the house would be very shortly going on the market! So they were prepared and they snapped it up and still live there today.

Nowadays, you don't exactly have to wait for someone to die before grabbing up a house in this neighborhood, as it's in a bit of a transition. As the rest of Baltimore slowly booms, this neighborhood will too -- but for now, it's a great buy, if you're looking. And yes, many of the houses around here are built like ours. It's not a totally homogeneous neighborhood, but there's definitely a 'look' to it.

Check out some listings:

This one and this one are actually on our street, and both are under 200K -- you won't find anything but a townhouse in most of the area for that much.

This one is one block over from us -- I think we can see it from the front door. This is down the street from that one, and I believe it's handicap-accessible (several homes in the neighborhood are, as people spend their whole lives here! About ten or twenty years ago some of the original owners of these houses began to need handicap access).

I'm all about this one -- it's a full rehab, so you wouldn't need to do any of the work that some of the older homes might require (nobody really needs to do as much as we're doing, but hey), although if you wanted to there's a workshop in the back! And let me tell you, that price for four bedrooms is proof that this neighborhood is not on anyone's radar yet. For the record, this one is about three blocks away, towards the middle of the neighborhood. Very nice area.

This one is dead smack in the center of the neighborhood and looks huge. I've ogled this one in the past, although I did once see a chicken running around in the road in front of it. If you go to look at it, check for chicken coops!

If you want to talk about getting a lot for your money, check this one out -- pool AND game room AND some serious curb appeal! Try finding that for under 400K ANYWHERE. Seriously. If you buy that house, I will be jealous. It's really nice.