My parents have been visiting the St. Louis area a second time looking at real estate. This time has gone better than last — Mom was a little bit more prepared, with some candidates to look at that she found on Zillow, mortgage pre-qualification and whatnot. But she still didn’t talk to any realtors in advance, so it’s a good thing that one of the houses where we scouted the exterior happened to have an open house the next afternoon and they met a buyer’s agent.
After some ups and downs, some doubts and reassurances and comparisons, it’s looking like that first house is going to be the one. Fingers crossed, because I think they really should move here closer to family and put all the associated stress behind them. I think they’re going to like that house — the small things that they want to nitpick are all either easily corrected or the sort of thing where they might grow to like it eventually. (The downsides of the other strong contender were harder/impossible to fix.)
So anyway, my last 6 days have been a lot of driving them around, looking at Zillow and Google Maps and Crimegrade, eating in a lot of restaurants and having way too much sugar (thanks to Culver’s and Crumbl), reminding them that I have less experience buying houses than they do and that I’m not a handyman and that basements are normal, and trying to find a way to get comfortable while waiting around in their Extended Stay room that has two twin beds and a questionable office chair. The mental and physical stress has led to back pain, leg cramps and poor sleep, not to mention our routine is all out of whack. But I think this is going to work out this time.