Hunting the house - São Paulo and Boston area

Photo credit: homedit.com

So I'm up here in Boston land house-hunting for our move in August. It's exhausting--as house-hunting always is. I remember looking for a house in São Paulo in 2008--BH and I found our current house in just one week. And it was love at first sight and clear from the start. We haven't had that moment here after two days of searching. Tomorrow I return to the town of my alma mater...I am caught in the tractor beam of the mother ship again...

One of the biggest differences in house-hunting here is that the owner is never home. In Brazil the owner is frequently home as you poke through their house making comments on bad decorating choices or absurd kitchens. Yes, it's true, the owners get to stay. Here they are never at home.

I remember one of my worst moment in house-searching in Brazil. When we walked into the house, which was dark and overstuffed with old antiques and musty and just terrible, there was the elderly owner with an oxygen tank hooked up. Only his eyes watched as we walked through his house. It was an awful feeling and I left as soon as I could. Clearly the family had fallen on hard times as they cared for this elderly man.

There have been houses here that I've wanted to leave as soon as I walked in as well, but not because of the owner's presence.