I’ve about worn my emotions out looking for houses. Apparently I like to look, but my expectations are too high.

So starting over, I decided to see how much houses are all over town. Limited to a price of up to $250,000, since at a million+ they cost $250/sqft and I couldn’t ever consider that, I found that houses range from $112 (for new homes) to $32 (for small older homes).

This is a good thing to know, though I think perhaps I should limit it to houses near in size to the ones we are looking for.

In town that means 170 houses under $250,000 and 2000 sqft or larger.

Basically in those the range is from $110 to $56 per sqft. In terms of only houses, one I think is beautiful is $50 and there are others which are less, but in terms of places we would live, the range is between $110 and $56. That makes quite a bit of difference when I am sitting here looking at it. It means that the houses I liked on the hill, that I thought were so expensive, were really reasonable. They are between $62 and $67 per sqft.

On the whole hill, it’s $58 to $94. That’s a significantly smaller difference.

I’ve read that houses with large sqft are cheaper per sqft, but I don’t think that is really happening in Abilene, though maybe it is.

The house on Sayles was in the cheap range at $62.

I’m going to put in all the places we said we would live and see what it looks like.

First, that means we are looking at a total of 36 houses. That’s all. One has sold I know. Another has probably sold. So really, less than 30 houses.

Total cost? $95-43. The 43 is an empty home in an area we would live in that needs a new kitchen. However, that is clearly included in the price. But the area didn’t go up as much as it would have needed to in order to carry a house with a new kitchen. We are going to be there a long time though and it is cheap. $129,000 for 2,9994 sqft. We might need to look at it after all.

So, houses in the middle range (the second of three pages) are $70-57. That’s all the houses on the hill that I was considering. I just thought they were expensive. So maybe they are quite reasonable after all.

I guess I need to talk to H before we go in May and see where he thinks the most important would be. Or maybe I could get a list of possibilities and have the realtor send us the info on them. Then when Dad and I go, we could winnow it down.

I just have to make sure not to get too far out of my real price range when I am looking. That’s my tendency. My hopes exceed my abilities. Isn’t that true of most people?

And now I need to get dressed for church. It’s Palm Sunday!