Mi Casa en el Burque

So when I decided to leave PDX once and for all at the beginning of 07', I landed in the Land of Enchantment in late March after an excursion to Perth, OZ (to finally see my old matey Nathan from my time in Japan who had finally “retired” to the area of his birth after over a decade in Nippon), Bali and Vietnam. Of course, I wasn't going to buy a house right away-had to check out the hoods particularly since ABQ does have a rep for some sleazy areas, so I did a 6 month rental near the UNM campus. In the fall I started scoping out neighborhoods more seriously and at first my luck was not good-lots of overpriced houses needing lots of work. But after about a month I found a great place and went about making my pitch/offer and since the market was down (though not as bad as much of the rest of the country), I had some leverage as well as a seller motivated to move the house-it had been on and off the market for about 6 months and she had already bought and moved into a new house.

In short, my low ball deal went through at the end of the year and in comparison I got a better house with more space (though yes, much less land though I do not miss cutting grass or raking leaves so really there is no trade off) in a nicer and quieter neighborhood at almost half the price of PDX just a few miles farther from downtown than in Portland but only about 2-3 miles from the Sandia Mountains with a full front view of the range. Additionally, there is a great park a block away for Windsor sniff around in, a police substation a block away just in case, a post office a block away and a good sized library branch 4 blocks away. And my hockey rink is only 7 miles away straight up Tramway Blvd., next to the noted Tram that goes up to the peak of the Sandias, the world’s longest passenger aerial tramway. My place is solid and very Southwestern style in décor and design with an open 400 sq. ft. main room as well as 6 skylights throughout so I can take advantage of New Mexico's greatest asset, sun.

In closing, more on the Burque and the “Land of Manana” to come down the line.