Three weeks ago, Saturday the 29th, we found paradise – Dayton style. After two whole days of doing nothing active about finding housing I was feeling antsy, so to cope with it I mapped out 5 properties to drive by and walk around. To save time and be very organized I had plotted the route out so that there was no back tracking and we worked in a counter clockwise pattern.
Quickly we ruled out the first one or two, had some hopes for another. As we drove to the last house we noticed a lot of work going on at houses on the street. Many of the properties had signs noting “Rehabarama”. It was all looking very promising. However the property on our schedule was lacking, mostly because of limited outdoor space. We decided to keep driving round the neighborhood, one TGF had never heard of though she lived just north of here for decades. The area name you ask? Okay, promised to laugh for only 10 minutes. South Park. Yeah, yeah, I feel like I have visited with King of the Hill with Boomhauer, The Simpsons with Cletus, and now I was falling in love with historic South Park. The variety of houses was inspiring, the upkeep on many were quite good. As we circled and looped the blocks of this neighborhood another thing we noticed was a jazz concert happening on the greenway of Park Drive with a large mix of people, kids playing – just a sweet afternoon.
“I could totally live here”, I pronounced. The homes we looked at in the Belmont section where nice, truly but it felt a bit too suburban, sterile. South Park was alive with kids playing outside, cute architecture and just felt like a neighborhood where people said hello as they passed. And just like that we refocused our goals for where we wanted to live. I noted addresses with for sale signs and researched my fingers off that night. Sunday we returned, looking at one house that we saw that had some potential. Walking around it we were a little hesitant about the specific property. A bit later we met up with Jeriann to show her around and she too was delighted. We got out of the car in front of one home that clearly was out of budget but we couldn’t help but to look. As we were standing there a woman appeared and said, “Let me tell you about this house”. She told a lovely story about the house however we were really looking for something to fix up ourselves. Maureen introduced herself and told us a bunch about the neighborhood. We exchanged phone and email information – she was so friendly! Not more than 10 minutes after we left she called to tell me about another house or two we should drive by to see what we thought. Helpful and friendly. Drove by one the house was we were instantly and completely smitten, however the signs on the house did not indicate it was for sale at all.
Finally we left but we were all convinced that this was the right place for us.
