Sunday, May 01, 2011

House Hunting in Iquique, Part Two

So far our two houses in Chile have been yellow ones. For that reason alone I liked the first house we viewed on Friday, its bright yellow paint beckoning me like sunshine. I also liked the fact that the gate was metal with wooden slats for privacy, something we've had on the "to-do" list for our current place for quite some time. To enter by the narrow gate meant stepping down into a small square patio, while the wide gate allowed entrance for one vehicle to park on the downward slanted tile.

Indeed, the entire house was tiled in light colors which was open and refreshing. A large (by our current standards) living room met an average-sized dining room through sliding glass doors. The dining room connected with the kitchen through an large window over top of a small breakfast bar, and opposite the sliding glass doors leading to the living room were an identical pair of doors leading into another small patio.

This patio had narrow stairs to the left, two rooms straight ahead, and a bathroom and little laundry room to the right. The two rooms were called bedrooms but had no windows to the outside world, which in my estimation made them better suited for storage. For the record, the small front patio and this small indoor/outdoor patio were the extent of "yard" - however, the stairs to the left led to a comfortable second-floor cement terrace overlooking the neighborhood and connecting to the modest master bedroom.

Also on the second floor (accessible by stairs from the downstairs living room as well) were two more bedrooms and one more bathroom. The house is built in such a way as to allow for a third-story addition, which would be lovely. Definitely there were lots of possibilities and the neighborhood was a plus because there seemed to be several young families and it's a fairly quiet area.

I should mention that the kitchen was small, smaller than what we have now, but doable. The realtor estimated that the house was probably around the equivalent of between 1700 - 1800 square feet. And the price?? About $177,000 US dollars. Steep for us but quite a bit ($20,000 or more) less than most comparable houses we've seen listed elsewhere.

And then it was on to house #2 ...


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