The House Hunt... so far.

Albuquerque is a big city of half a million people. If you include the suburban areas that flow into the city, our realtor says it's more like 800,000 people. Stephen and I have lived in Paradox, NY (winter population, 46 people), Ballston Lake NY, and Schuylerville, NY. This whole city thing is new to us. Fortunately, our realtor, Matt, knows the area inside and out and is proving to be invaluable as we look for a home.

ABQ is really nifty in that there are lots of different terrains, microclimates, and ambiances within the city. You can live on a city street, in the desert, on the side of a mountain, or near the river with lots of trees and grass. All of these areas have their charms for us, so we're flexible on that point. The one thing we have decided is that we want to be on the East side of the river for commuting. There are only so many bridges over the Rio Grande, and they can become annoying bottlenecks during heavy commute times. Now that I have started teaching lessons on the East side of the river, I too want to avoid traffic as much as possible.

The biggest problem we are having finding a home is that we want a modest house with a giant garage. The city doesn't seem to have such a thing. Most of the large garages we have seen come with way too much house for us. We may buy a house with room to build a garage, or expand an existing garage, or we might end up with a large house, depending on the price. The houses here don't have basements because it's too expensive to dig or dynamite a hole in the granite. And they don't have attics. So it makes more sense to have a slightly larger house to store the stuff we New Yorkers keep in our basements and attics. Other than the garage, we're not that picky. We want to have a guest room and guest bathroom and I would like an area for my instruments.

One area we love is on the Eastern edge of the city up against the foothills of the mountain. We have looked at a couple of houses that are next to open space. Here's the view from the driveway of one of them.

We like the adobe/stucco style houses with the flat roofs. Most of the houses have walls or fences. We like kiva fireplaces and tile floors -- both features of the New Mexico-style houses. Here's a house we looked at and liked but probably won't end up with because it's a foreclosure and we would have to rush to put down an offer: