Fingers and Toes Crossed

F. wanted to move quickly on the house on Clinton Hill in the Richmond, so the Husband toured it with her on Thursday morning. She said by the time they reached the downstairs family room, he was whimpering quietly, "I waaaaaaant this house." F. is ahead of us, she has contacted our mortgage broker, and asked him to call some local assessors, get an idea of how high we can go in this area, since it's new to all of us. I poke around on Zillow, see that houses in the area have sold in the low-to-mid 300s, and sure enough, the assessors come back and tell us $360K would be the limit.

We scramble, get an offer together on Thursday, and out to the selling agent - he tells us that he is expecting another offer, but will get us an answer in a day or two. Just so we aren't left hanging, F. has put a deadline of 6:00PM Saturday for their response.

The Husband has perused the City of Richmond's crime maps, and plans to go into the station and talk with them, cop to cop, about the area. He tells me that I will have to carry a phone when I walk the dogs, and he will show me how to use pepper spray if I'd like. (I try to imagine getting to pepper spray with two dog leashes in my hand. And I wonder what the Husband would have thought of the neighborhoods I lived in NYC and Hoboken back in the day...he would have never let me leave the house.)

We can't resist, it's a beautiful evening on Friday, so we load up the dogs and take them to Clinton Hill, take a long walk in the neighborhood. We meet a chatty woman walking her cattle dog, and she joins us, telling us that she used to live in Berkeley but she feels much safer here. We walk past the house, make a wish.