Meeting Sheila (and the first home contenders)

Our trip to Palacios was a short one unfortunately. We got to town at around 11am and drove the town center end to end, popping down a few side roads to see what we could find. We stopped at the Outrigger Restaurant where we chatted with the waitress -- who instantly identified us as "out-of-towners" and asked us how we liked Palacios.

After chatting with her about everything from the school system, to housing, to how she -- as a transplant from Montana -- liked the town. She raved about it, telling us about the great activities for kids, music events, outdoorsy things for people to do. One thing she did mention as negatives were that there's only one grocery store nearby and it's closing soon for renovations, and there aren't a whole lot of young people.

We left the restaurant and took a walk down one of the piers into the bay to see how the town looked from the water. TOOO cute!! Seriously wish we could afford one of those water facing properties... they aren't actually too pricey for what you're getting, but unfortunately, they're a little above our budget.

After our trip out on the pier we stopped by the only realtor's office we had managed to locate online. There was only one lady in the office (odd for a Friday at lunchtime I thought), but she was so warm and welcoming you'd have thought there were three of her.
Sheila Valcik of Re/Max Coastal Properties [Now Full Stringer Realty] was definitely the realtor for us.

She took the time to talk to us about the area. She discussed the school system, the community, her experiences being born and raised there. She also took the time to give her husband a call to chat with me about the internet service options that are available in the area. She handed us a pamphlet with their active listings, and a map to guide us around town. She showed us slideshows of various properties online and talked about some of her newer listings.

Before we knew it, we'd been in there for about 40 minutes and could easily have stayed another 40 with pleasure. But there were houses to be seen and pictures to be taken, so we set off map in one hand, listings sheet in the other and camera... uhm... in another set of hands...

Our drive around town brought two clear favorites.
500 Lucas (Peter's fave), 409 Johnson (Ros' fave). Here are the stats.

500 Lucas

Beds: 4
Baths: 2
Misc: Sun Room, 2 Storey (sp?), 1940
SQ FT: 2,083
Lot Size: 75' x 150'
Price*: 95%
(*Relative to our budget limit)

409 Johnson

Beds: 3
Baths: 1
Misc: Screened Porch, 1960
SQ FT: 1,008
Lot Size: 100' x 150'
Price*: 80%
(*Relative to our budget limit)

We each immediately picked a favorite (based solely on the exterior).
Peter chose "Lucas" because it has lot's of rooms and he thinks it would be excellent to have rooms we don't use much. He loves the look of the building as it's similar to homes in Buffalo and Kent that he saw growing up. It's a block or so closer to the bayfront than the other. He liked the thought of having a larger home so we wouldn't need to move for a long time.

Ros chose "Johnson" because the exterior is freshly painted with new-ish roof tiles and a well maintained yard. The yard is big. It is one block away from the only Elementary school in town and would be convenient when we have kids. It is a single storey (sp?) home so no lugging laundry baskets up and down stairs. It has just the right number of bedrooms and no unnecessary rooms that need cleaning.

After checking out some other more "desperate Dan" houses in the area we headed home to upload and review the pictures we had taken.

Next we will show you some inside shots of these places, and how more thought and research changed our minds a bit.