#170: The Two Totally Distinct Ways That We House Hunted

This week we are taking a deep dive into the two methods that we used to find our Florida house, including how we prioritized our wants versus needs, sifted through hundreds of real estate listings, and used technology to overcome the fact that we were 800 miles away. We are also sharing how a bad news call from our contractor ended up saving us from a large future headache (that may or may not have involved having zero functioning bathrooms in our new house). Plus, Sherry’s unique way with words comes back to haunt her. And John takes spreadsheeting to a whole new level.

You can also find this episode on your go-to podcast listening app, like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.

What is New

• Here is a sneak peek at the renovations going on at our Florida house, after we learned that ALLLL of the drywall on the first floor had to be replaced. Lively!

• We will certainly be sharing a lot more pictures in a week or two when the house is more secure, but here is a look at the current state of our home’s only existing bathroom (we will be adding an en-suite bathroom once we move in – but for now, this is all we have). We originally planned to keep the existing tub/shower combo, but discovering a leak behind the wall made it time to redo that room more fully. At least when we move in it should be as good as new (and not leaking anymore!).

• If you missed the original story about how our plumbing curse followed us to Florida, it is at the start of Episode #168.
• You can also hear the full discussion of baskets (which prompted Sherry’s hit musical entitled “Baskets In The Attic”) in Episode #123 – which also sports one of my all-time go-to episode titles, Baskets: Friend Or Foe?

• Later this week we will be sharing a big post full of inspiration pictures that are inspiring our Florida house renovation. Do not be surprised if you see a lot more of the woven textures shown above. #spoiler

Game: What is Sherry Describing?

• Thanks again to listener Jeannie Rodriguez for the putting together this week’s game! You can hear us interview her husband, aka “Dr Budgets” in Episode #63. He has plenty of strong budgeting pointers!
• Here are links to the objects that Sherry was describing, along with the episode in which the clip originally aired.
  • The ice roller (zamboni for her face) shown above in Episode #142
  • Our salt lamp nightlights (not-rocky-cylinders) in Episode #65
  • The divided turntable organizer (pizza shaped wedges) shown below in Episode #76
  • Her Corkcicle water bottle (does not ting-a-ling-a-ling bottom) in Episode #150
  • The outdoor kids’ swing (crocheted hoola hoop) in Episode #48
  • The Drop Stop (sock full of rice for the crack) in Episode #109

How We House Hunted From Afar

• You can hear a broader discussion about why we chose to move and how we picked the Florida Panhandle in Episode #163 and can read even more details in this journal post about it.
• To give you an idea of how MANY options there were, these are the results you get in some of the areas along the panhandle that we were considering. And all of those dots are after we brought in our parameters (like at least 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms) AND clicked the box that it should only show us homes with a pool. 900 results! Hence the need for a spreadsheet…

• So after we favorited ours within the Zillow and Realtor.com apps, I built the infamous spreadsheet to assist us wrap our heads around the ones that checked the most boxes on our list of priorities.
• Here is an idea of what the spreadsheet looked like (simply imagine about 70 more rows – ha!). It helped us to finalize a list of houses we hoped to see with our realtor when we visited Florida in February (where we simply had about two days on the ground, so we had to make the most of our time).

• Like I mentioned in the episode, it was not a ideal system because so much of the home buying process is hard to quantify from online research alone – especially things like a good floor plan, walkability, and neighborhood.
• The “Walkability” scores that you see above are based on each home’s result on WalkScore.com. They are certainly not ideal and should be validated with some additional research (like checking out Google Satellite maps). For example, our Cape Charles beach house gets a higher WalkScore than our new Florida house, when in real life the Florida house is walkable to about twice as many things. So nothing beats seeing things in person and literally parking and walking to test it out (we enjoyed doing that in Florida when we visited). As a side note, both of those houses’ walk scores are much higher than our current Richmond house, which scores a 1 by contrast.

We are Digging

• The Florida puzzle we did with the kids is out of stock (here is the link anyway) but we dug up some others that look like lively family puzzles in that “magic” 500 piece range (crystals | flair | cats | scientists). We like that they are not too hard for the kids, but also hard sufficient to keep us adults entertained too. And yes, that “Cool Cats” one is a Carol Baskin nod (it has 1000 pieces but we will allow it because – TIGER KING).

• And here is the link to the April 6th episode of the podcast I am digging that is called Everything Little Thing, where they spoke to a bunch of essential workers who shared their firsthand experiences and feelings about what it is like delivering packages, stocking shelves, driving buses, and more these days.

If you are looking for something we have dug in a past episode, but do not remember which show notes to click into, here is a master list of everything we have been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we have recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Social Print Studio for sponsoring this episode. You can take 15% off your next order using the code YHL15 through April 30th! And heads up – their Mother’s Day standard shipping deadline is April 27th.

Thanks for listening, folks!

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