I’ve been inspired by Bill Wendel of the Real Estate Cafe to explore the theme “Romancing the Home!” during the next couple of weeks that lead up to Valentine’s Day. My hope is that some of the contributors (and readers) will use this as an opportunity to talk about the things that we love about our homes!
[photopress:girls_walking.jpg,full,alignright]I’ve had a great email correspondence with Bill for a while now and I always find him to be exceptionally knowledgeable and full of inspiration. Last year, he built a Valentines Day blog that is filled with wonderful stories including one about the Valentine’s Day parties that he would celebrate with his daughter every year.
When real estate blogging, it is so easy to get caught up in the investment value of a home that we can easily overlook some of the more subtle benefits. No matter how hard we try, most of us choose our home based on considerations that go beyond getting the best deal… Maybe we want on a home with a fireplace… Or a home in a nice neighborhood… Or a home with a great school system…. Or a home with a large kitchen. All of these things represent features that make our homes special.
So what makes my home special? Things that come to mind include our family room where we spend many nights reading stories around our fireplace, our neighborhood filled with great kids, and our garden where we’ve spent many a wonderful spring day after a rainy winter.
I encourage you to share you’re stories as well as check back in over the next two weeks as we spend a little time romancing our homes!
As I think about it, it occurs to me that there is nothing about my house itself that I truly love. For me, its the old “location, location, location”. Denver’s extensive bicycle network runs right through my development. We are surrounded on three sides by open space and have a tremendous view of the Rocky Mountain Front Range. It takes 5 minutes to drive to the mountains, and 20 to downtown. I love the convenience of living on the edge of a great city with the wilderness just steps away.
Todd,
Interesting comment. I’ve been corresponding with Dustin about interactive maps for several weeks because I want to try to create a map of what people LOVE about communities here in Boston.
Do you know Kevin Lynch’s famous book, _Image of the City_? The title refers to the image map we carry in our heads and hearts of things we love about a place. I’ve got some ideas about how to do something like that before Valentine’s Day here in Cambridge, MA. If all goes well, the first set of entries will be the locations of 30 block parties across this city of 90,000 residents. Hopefully, that will become on ongoing tool for home buyers who are looking to move into old-fashioned communities where people actually know there neighbors!