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March 18, 2007

Movin' In Together (Or, "I Heart The Internets")

Elaine and I spent a chunk of our weekend looking for a new place to live.

Given that we're tyin' the knot later this year, it seemed high time that we actually move in together and go through the ritualistic, traditional Mingling Of The Stuff. This is a good/bad thing - good in that I'm soon to be the proud half-owner of a microwave, 19" TV and Garden State soundtrack CD; bad in that there will be, without question, something in my Bachelor Stuff that qualifies as the "Stupid, Roy Rogers, Garage Sale Wagon Wheel Coffee Table" from When Harry Met Sally.

(My framed Tron poster stays. I'm firm on this.)

We've both been apartment-dwellers, and I've made no secret to anyone that I've been fantasizing about/coveting the "house experience" for some time now. I like the "tiny life" apartment experience just fine (my place is 500 square feet, and, as I don't have a lot of stuff, it suits me), but whenever I attend Game Night at Kristen & Aaron's, I'm taken with their space - Exhibit A being their big, soundproof downstairs (perfect for the round of Karaoke Revolution or Wii Bowling). For my part, I've wanted a private garage to park the Shadow, a back yard with a barbecue, a place to entertain friends, and more closet space.

So Lane and I chatted, built our list of criteria (a few bedrooms, not too expensive, a good kitchen, room to entertain, my BBQ/garage action, close proximity to services and transit, yadda yadda) and hit the Web.

This is my fifth move in the last ten years (Dallas, Eastlake, Cap Hill, my current place, and now this), and each time has become progressively easier. I attribute this entirely to the proliferation of the Internet, and the amazing amount of information available to a fella with just a few keystrokes.

Consider. When I moved to Dallas in '97, it took me a good few weeks of looking around to find a place I liked. You'd look for listings in the local paper, call the numbers, and when people got back to you - if they got back to you at all - the place was likely rented. It was often hard to know where things were located in town, as well - when the seller is paying for each line or character in the ad, the ad tends to be minimal. And so you drove neighborhoods, looked around for this and that, and ultimately made a decision that you were (often) less-than-satisfied with.

Craigslist has changed all this. Ads are verbose, overflowing with photos, and come with Google/Yahoo map links. Sites like housingmaps.com mash up Craigslist with Google Maps, thus allowing you to plot the locations of current rentals all over the city. When you find something that looks good (again, much faster than you could've a decade ago), you can just e-mail the seller, and the responses are (invariably) immediate.

Heck, renters even use Craigslist to watch out for each other. I saw this one online:

Beware of 2 BR Green Lake bungalow rental on N 62nd St. House suffers from basement flooding due to cracked foundation and collapsing southwest retaining wall; also, faulty interior wiring, leaky roof. Potential damage to possessions if owners cannot address.

(Whoa.)

Once you've got your laundry list of places you're really, truly interested in, you can then use some other great sites to cross-check for amenities like transit. I was forever going to BusMonster to see what stops were near a proposed address, or to Google Transit to see how long it would take me to get to work on a given Monday morning. And from there, again, the list was culled.

All of this, of course, is a long-winded way of saying that we found what we were looking for, and are going through the paperwork process now. The place is excellent - a house with garage, back yard, barbecue, soundproof downstairs, space for guests, and so on.

Assuming we pass credit checks and whatnot (aside to our future Mr. Landlord: We're not axe murderers! Really!), we move at the end of April. I expect some serious Karaoke Revolution action come mid-May.

I'm in a serious state of lovin' the Internet right now.

UPDATE, May 6, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at March 18, 2007 7:44 PM. Posted to Cool | Misc.

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Posted by: netsirk at March 20, 2007 11:18 AM

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