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Old 03-26-2014, 09:11 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
14,362 posts, read 16,946,112 times
Reputation: 12400

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Hey all,

So I got the news on Saturday my daughter got accepted at Linden K-5. This puts any immediate need to move before the start of the school year out the window. However, our house is still getting cramped. It's only 1260 square feet, and before long our son will be walking and it will seem that much smaller. The worst part is the bathroom situation, with all of us just sharing one. We have a Pittsburgh potty, but it's located in an inconvenient location, and we don't tend to use it much.

Anyway, to recap what we want.

Size - We need at least three bedrooms, 1.5 baths, with the .5 bath not in the basement. In terms of square footage, I think we'd need to upgrade to at least 1500. I'm of the attitude that bigger is better, particularly because with older homes unless you get above 2,000-2,500 you don't find a second bathroom, but my wife has shown disinterest in houses because they were "too big" and she felt like cleaning them would take forever.

Age/Style - We both like older houses. I'm not much of a fan of Pittsburgh housing styles past the Victorian era, but some Craftsmen style homes, if they have been well preserved, can be nice. We had a lead scare with our daughter when she was a toddler, so we'd like to avoid houses which have a lot of painted woodwork. My wife is if anything more of an "urbanist" than I am. She considers having a garage a negative, and would like a house with little to no front yard. We want something as intact as possible. I hate going into places where they have painted and/or removed all of the original internal architectural features.

Price - We bought our house for around $50,000, and are expecting to sell it for around $200,000, so we'll walk into the next place having a lot of cash. I have convinced my wife to look at anything up to $300,000, as even with climbing interest rates they are still lower than the 5.75% on our current mortgage, so coupled with increased money down we'd probably not pay much more than we already do.

Neighborhood - Our fighting is mostly here. My wife's parents are getting older, and she feels that she needs to relocate closer to them, since it's generally a 45-minute drive to the South Hills. So she's said neighborhoods even five minutes further from them, like Morningside and Highland Park, are just written off.

I've tried convincing her that the Lower North Side is actually closer in terms of driving time, but she hates highway driving(she avoids driving on 28 even though it's faster than the Strip District now), says the area feels "isolated" to her, and doesn't know if she could stomach seeing Allegheny Center all the time. She says the only portion of it she likes is the Mexican War Streets, and we can't afford to live there. I've tried showing her houses only a block from the historic district we can afford, and she shows no interest.

I've tried suggesting we move to South Side, since she lived there for years before we moved in together, and despite the neighborhood drawbacks these days it's still quite walkable. We can't afford the best stuff at our price range, and she's just not been interested in what we can get.

For awhile we were thinking about Brookline, but since our daughter got into Linden, she feels like it will mean too long of a bus ride for her in the morning. My wife is also from the South Hills, and feels it's a little too "South Hills like" for her to deal with.

In the past we toyed with moving to Greenfield, which we both don't think is ideal, because it's too suburban for us. And since we've gotten into the magnet system now, I kinda feel like it's pointless to move to the Lower East End, since we'd pay a premium for schools we're not using.

Ultimately, my wife just doesn't want to leave the neighborhood. However, the ship has essentially sailed on affording a bigger house. I mean, I don't see any internal pictures of this, but I'm almost positive it's a gut job. And something like this would be perfect, but there's no way I could convince my wife to spend that.

Anyway, I don't think there are any easy answers here, but I thought I'd throw things out there and see what people think.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:02 AM
 
Location: Hazelwood, Pittsburgh, PA
16 posts, read 23,023 times
Reputation: 22
It sounds like you should just stay where you are and renovate the basement and make it useful space or something.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:04 AM
 
288 posts, read 510,322 times
Reputation: 169
I can't believe the prices for houses in Lawrenceville. You can get houses in Squirrell Hill now for less than what people want for updates homes in Lawrenceville.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:10 AM
 
Location: 15206
1,860 posts, read 2,571,914 times
Reputation: 1301
I'm going to go with:

the small city section of Regent Square - close to 376
Mt Washington
Sq Hill
Greenfield

Or go with the HP/Morningside/East Lib option and convince the inlaws to move closer to the city. Threaten them that you might move the grand daughter out of state if you find the right job.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:11 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
14,362 posts, read 16,946,112 times
Reputation: 12400
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjyarish View Post
It sounds like you should just stay where you are and renovate the basement and make it useful space or something.
The basement of our house cannot be finished. It's a rowhouse only 12 feet wide, and the way they located the utilities (right in the middle of the basement) there's no real way to carve off a room. The best we could do is make a finished bathroom/laundry room in the basement, but given it would be way in back it wouldn't add that much over the current setup.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rockthecasbah121 View Post
I can't believe the prices for houses in Lawrenceville. You can get houses in Squirrell Hill now for less than what people want for updates homes in Lawrenceville.
To be honest, I'm not a fan of the modern "updated" houses in Lawrenceville. It seems like the flippers basically do the following.

1. Rip everything out to the studs. Maybe leave the stairwell intact, if it's nice.
2. Leave exposed brick on all internal walls. Construct some weird drywall structure to surround the first floor stairwell, but otherwise have an "open floor plan" on the first floor.
3. Cover perfectly nice pine floors with modern engineered wood.
4. If the outside of the house already looked like crap, do absolutely nothing to fix it.

That Hatfield house I linked to is great because it left all the things which made the old houses in Lawrenceville great. But if we wanted new construction, we'd buy new construction. It's not as if the larger-sized "rehabs" are any less expensive than the infill construction.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:18 AM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,839,661 times
Reputation: 30715
Since your wife is a difficult woman creating this puzzle, ask her to find a solution. That's what I do with people whose roadblocks create impossible scenarios. Make it her problem to solve.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:19 AM
 
Location: Mexican War Streets
1,584 posts, read 2,089,606 times
Reputation: 1389
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
I've tried convincing her that the Lower North Side is actually closer in terms of driving time, but she hates highway driving(she avoids driving on 28 even though it's faster than the Strip District now), says the area feels "isolated" to her, and doesn't know if she could stomach seeing Allegheny Center all the time. She says the only portion of it she likes is the Mexican War Streets, and we can't afford to live there. I've tried showing her houses only a block from the historic district we can afford, and she shows no interest.
Well, it is quite the specific set of "needs" creating a conundrum.

Just from a Northside perspective, thought I'd offer some insight into the concerns addressed above.

Essentially you can get to the South Hills without any real "highway" driving and it would be my preferred route anyway. Taking the West End bridge briefly puts you on 51, which I grant you "feels" a little highway-esq but it's very short and then the onramp to the Parkway West can dump you onto Banksville Road. No real highway interaction and I guarantee you it would be quicker. The best part of the Northside is, absent game-day let outs or a brief rush hour period when the North Shore parking lots empty, it's a breeze to get out of the neighborhood itself, which is half the battle.

The feeling of isolation is somewhat true, although overblown and really a two-edged sword. As you've sort of done here, I really consider Allegheny West, the War Streets and remainder of Allegheny City Central and Deutchtown to be a single, lower Northside neighborhood for all practical purposes.

The isolation from the train tracks and highways actually serves as a buffer as well, making the neighborhoods somewhat easier to live in honestly. You are removed from the North Shore and all of its potential for mayhem, be the Steelers games or Chesney concerts. They are easy to access should you want to but also easy to keep at arms length.

Also keep in mind that the historic district will be expanding in the next couple of years. It's not necessary to go in to all of the details over this somewhat contentious issue, but I would suggest that the law, demographics, and the arc of the urban revitalization bend towards that outcome.

Best of luck with your continued search.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:23 AM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,839,661 times
Reputation: 30715
Quote:
Originally Posted by selltheburgh View Post
I'm going to go with:

the small city section of Regent Square - close to 376
Mt Washington
Sq Hill
Greenfield

Or go with the HP/Morningside/East Lib option and convince the inlaws to move closer to the city. Threaten them that you might move the grand daughter out of state if you find the right job.
They don't like Greenfield because it's too suburban. She'll think Squirrel Hill and Regent Square are too far since she thinks Morningside and Highland Park are too far. Mt. Washington is an option, but I'll bet they'll feel it's too suburban like Greenfield.

The easiest solution is to convince the in-laws to move to the city, but that's unlikely if his wife gets her stubborn streak from her parents.

I feel the OP's pain.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:33 AM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,839,661 times
Reputation: 30715
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
Ultimately, my wife just doesn't want to leave the neighborhood. However, the ship has essentially sailed on affording a bigger house. I mean, I don't see any internal pictures of this, but I'm almost positive it's a gut job. And something like this would be perfect, but there's no way I could convince my wife to spend that.
The owner of that second house might take an offer of 300k. When I was looking at houses, we started looking higher and lower than our budget to increase the options. People don't usually end up selling their houses for the asking prices.
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Old 03-26-2014, 10:40 AM
 
Location: O'Hara Twp.
4,359 posts, read 7,506,011 times
Reputation: 1611
Not sure where in the South Hills you need to go but Friendship would be close to both Linden and to the South Hills by way of Bigelow Blvd. to West Liberty.

I agree that you should have your wife make the decision. She is going to be unhappy with either the drive to her parents or the length of your daughter's bus ride to school.

I would probably vote to live close to school. Years ago I took a bus from Churchill to Squirrel Hill and it was brutal. If you live in the East End your daughter would be closer to her school friends theoretically. You would also be close to school for activities. But let your wife make the decision.
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