NickDozier.com

Househunting and other adult things.

June 26th, 2009

Well I’ve taken one more step towards adulthood/death. After 9 years of living in various dorm rooms and apartments I’m shopping for my first house. I have to say it’s not without a little trepidation either. In fact if it wasn’t for Obama’s First Time Homebuyer’s tax credit I probably wouldn’t even be putting myself through this. I don’t even care if this will send us into an inflation death spiral at least my mortgage will be $8000 less than you suckas!

My two biggest fears are:

1) I’m not exactly sold on St. Louis being my forever home. Hell 40% of me thinks I should just pack up and move to LA, or Italy, or Australia, or anything else. I’ve always viewed home ownership as cementing (i.e. trapping) yourself into one place for an extended period of time.

2) I don’t want to live in a shithole. In St. Louis you can get a very nice apartment for $900 a month in almost any neighborhood you want. I’ve lived in UCity, CWE, Clayton, and Maplewood. All because I wanted to. Buying a house is not the same. If I want a nice house I can afford I won’t be able to live in the “hip” neighborhoods or I can get a nice neighborhood and a POS house. Not a favorable situation.

The other big decision I need to make is Suburban or City. With a suburban house you get a bigger yard and less crime but also less activities in your neighborhood. With a city house you’ll have a slightly higher chance of being shot in the head on your way to your car in the morning but all the bars and restaurants are right there.

I think I’m leaning more city. St. Louis has some freaking sweet rehabs in the city. I mean imagine I lived here:

or here even:

The coolest place I’ve looked at is at the top of my price range but a completely rehabbed 3 story house. This sucker is 115 years old! I think that is really cool. Imagine living in a place that is older than every human on the face of the Earth (ok except for one).

I’m going out looking again this weekend (in 110° heat no less) and I’ll hopefully have a better idea of the neighborhood and type of house I want. Either that or I’m moving to Mexico to open a dive shop. I could go either way really.

Mini-Apps

St. Louis Lunch Search

Popular Tags

Nerd Stuff

RSS Feed

Latest Tweetssee all

Bookmarks see all

19 Comments Add your own

1. Chris Wallace | June 26th, 2009 at 2:39 pm

What happens when you find a homeless guy sleeping in your backyard?
2. Nick | June 26th, 2009 at 2:43 pm

@Chris – I think city houses come with a fence specifically for this reason.
3. Matthew Smith | June 26th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

@Nick The homeless are pretty resourceful. What parts of the city are you looking in?
4. Heather Henning DeHart | June 26th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

I vote for moving to Mexico to open a dive shop
5. Nick | June 26th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

I might be buying a house for the wrong reasons. Mainly I just want a BBQ pit and a Hot Tub.

@Matt – The City City. SouthHampton blows donkey. It’s all yours!
6. Matthew Smith | June 26th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

@Nick I like to call it SoHa. Better invest in a security system. You can always move out to St. Charles, the home O’Fallon Gold and trucks.
7. Nick | June 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

@Matt – St. Charles is also the home of SCAT. So that’s something….
8. Eric Krassinger | June 26th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

Are you looking at Lofts downtown? I think I am pretty verse in this area if you are wanting help.

A deck is key to me downtown. I passed on places I shouldn’t have. I want one solely for the BBQ pit. I am not down with sharing communal pits.

You also have to get one with the garage attached or in the basement so you never need to walk in the elements. That way you are safe and all your friends can brave the outside world. Its really not bad. I feel less safe in parts of SoHa as Matt puts it.

The other key is a rooftop deck. Some even have pools and kitchen areas. This is key for entertaining and relaxing.

I chose downtown over CWE and other city neighborhoods because downtown places had the best to offer for the price in newness, features, and coolness. How bout that explanation?
9. Nick | June 26th, 2009 at 3:39 pm

@Eric – I like it! Thanks. I’ve been looking at Lofts off and on for 3 years. I generally go to the downtown living tours too.

Downtown has good and bad. It’s booming so I like that there is always a new restaurant or bar opening up. It’s far from work and friends though. Also I’m wondering if I would prefer to have my own space (beyond a rooftop deck).

I can picture myself walking to Rams and Cards games though. Homeless be damned!
10. Jon Klevorn | June 26th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

Dupo is an awesome place if you enjoy trailers mixed in with normal houses on the street and random boats at the end of courts. I’m pretty sure you won’t be achieving objective 2 on your site by moving to the dirty d.
11. Oldangerous | June 26th, 2009 at 4:02 pm

You can microwave some seriously good pizzas and hotdogs in that kitchen.
12. Nick | June 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Also I’m not interested in a plastic house — one with aluminum siding. That pretty much eliminates most of St. Charles County.
13. Layla | June 26th, 2009 at 6:14 pm

I can’t believe the BBQ/Hot Tub is winning so far. Very grown up of you—-what happened to Man Cave à la stripper pole?
14. Nick | June 26th, 2009 at 6:22 pm

@Layla – Stripper Pole is still a go if I get a Loft. But remember some of the houses I’ve seen in South City have full on built in torture chambers in the basement. Now we’re talking!
15. Allison | June 26th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

I know your dilemma. You’ve seen our place. We do have a yard. Sort of. But, we have NO space inside.

Then we walk to the beach and I’m so happy.

Then we get wedding gifts that we can’t unpack because there’s no place to put them.

Having been going through this, I say city at this point. You don’t have kids so you can do it. And, you’re not cemented to anything. You can do whatever you want whenever you want.
16. Allison Riley | June 27th, 2009 at 6:11 am

These days the plastic homes come with VINYL siding….not aluminum…LOL. I have the Hot Tub, but still working on the built in Fire pit/BBQ….good luck on the hunting!
17. Nick | June 27th, 2009 at 12:02 pm

@Allison (from LA) – I usually think about LA when the weather is terrible in St. Louis (like now). Also the chances of me impregnating a young starlet while I’m in St. Louis are fairly remote.

@Allison (the Aunt) – true it’s vinyl but we still call that aluminum siding for some reason. I just don’t want to ever say “No need to paint this year I’ll just hose the house off.”
18. Kristen | June 29th, 2009 at 11:28 am

Nicki, I’d prefer if you didn’t live in the city. Like you said, getting shot in the head would suck and then I wouldn’t have a big brother to buy me things

However, I would prefer you to live in the scary city rather than you moving to L.A or some other far-away area where I could never afford to visit you.
19. Derek R. | July 15th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

I’ve looked at all three of the places you have pictures of. The first smells like piss. The second and third were way over priced.

Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed