I've been in the U.S. looking at homes for sale in the city we chose for ten days now and just signed a contract on a property we've decided on. We took a big gamble in chosing a city we knew nothing about except what I found from research on the internet, and I wasted the first six of those ten days looking in an area that turned out not to be where we wanted to live even though the homes were nice and well priced (around the equivelent of 4 million baht).
My realtor finally figured that out and suggested an area on the opposite side of the city where we would have to pay a little bit more and give up two of our searh criteria, which was age of home and a garage. Three days later we have signed a contract on what appears to be a wonderful home in a wonderful neighborhood. The home is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 165 square meters of living space, land about 1400 square meters, and we got it for the equivalent of 4.9 million baht. That's nearly a million more than I was hoping to spend for a bit smaller home than I was hoping to get but for the area a good deal on a house that is 31 years old but completly renovated in the last 2 years.
My impression of the city is that it is the cleanest big city I've ever seen, people are friendly, and the weather has given me nearly all the seasons I have been missing in the last 10 days! The high temperature today is 75F (or 24C) while the lows at night have been around 50F (10C) which is near perfect for me. I literally have not shed one drop of sweat since arriving.
I will get a taste of winter starting tomorrow as a cold front is coming through and the highs are predected to be 7C with nightime lows of -2C. I've been wearing shorts and t-shirts up until now just like in Thailand, but when I heard about the change coming I ran down the street to Walmart and picked up 3 pairs of long pants (14 dollars each and easy to find my large size) and a cheap jacket.Here are some photos of the house and neighborhood:
To be continued...
