this is old news by now, but not to you since i completely fucking forgot to write about it. drum roll please... karl and i are trying to buy a house.

well, karl is trying to buy a house, and i am trying to pay him rent. essentially. because my stipend? not enough to buy a house with. at least, not a non-trailer house. and really, there's not room to park a trailer, even a single-wide, on the streets of west philly.

we'd like to stay in our neighborhood, since we love it here. however, we quickly discovered that our neighborhood and our price range do not get along. they haven't quite cited irreconcilable differences, but they are living on opposite coasts and only seeing each other for photo ops to keep up the illusion of a happy marriage.

the problem, see, is that the houses in the area we want to live in are almost all huge mansion things that were built 100 years ago when this was the "suburbs". they're almost all 3-4 story, 5-7 bedroom victorian thingies. now, it just being the two of us and the piggy, we don't need 5-7 bedrooms, nor can we afford them. but there are precious few smaller houses in the area. the smaller, more affordable houses are all located further north/west/south, in areas that, how to put this nicely?, are still populated with fried chicken places, check-cashing establishments, and bars with names like "leroy's lounge". (memo to self: one of these days, do a photo essay of all the "lounges" in the area. problem with plan: having to walk around the area at night. must tread carefully or befriend someone large and menacing.)

so you see the difficulty. the plan we've concocted to deal with this situation is to get a bigass house that either (a) has a 2nd kitchen on the 3rd floor or (b) has been officially converted into a 2-unit building with a 3 bedroom "owner's unit" on the first two floors and a 2-3 bedroom rental apt on the 3rd and 4th floors, then get a boarder. the rental income will help with the mortgage, but we still can't afford the down payment, so we're getting karl's brother in on the plan. he'd provide, say, 35-40% of the money and have an investment property.

there are currently 3 houses on the market with a 2nd kitchen and 1 subdivided into 2 units in the appropriate way. we've seen one house, and liked it, but want to see the others before we decide which to make an offer on. it's nerve-wracking, since we're going away on vacation next week and won't be able to see the other houses til we get back and what if they're sold by then! i have to keep telling myself that even if they are, there will be other houses that fit our needs. there will. i hope.

so, off to pack for the beach! see you in a week with a tan.