We’re tempted to buy a different condo when we get to Florida. Of course, we should look at it before we decide and we’ve only seen photos. But before we bought our current condo, we had looked at what was available and we both felt the perfect condo for us would be a two-story model with a room over-looking the living room which we could use for a music room. The two-story units were totally out of our price-range, when we were looking, but there’s one available now with a decent view that might be affordable. Since we toured many units with that layout, we know what to expect. The balcony has a FULL bathroom instead of the usual 1/2 bath. There’s also a lovely screened balcony room.

The best improvement would be the master bathroom. John hates our current condo’s bath because it’s small. This one would have a master bath with lots of room with two vanities, a garden tub and a large walk in shower. There are also two walk-in closets in the master bedroom area. There’s also a lovely bay window (sitting area) at the end of that bedroom. Our living current living room is probably about the same size. The kitchen in the two-story has a breakfast room (eating area) and twice as many cabinets. There is a room which is currently being used as an office which could be restored to a utility room, or there is room in the garage for a washer/dryer. The dining room is open and spacious. The second bedroom and bathroom nice. The floors are laminate in the kitchen, office, and hallway. There’s tile in the three bathrooms and foyer area. But unfortunately the great room and bedrooms are carpeted.

The negatives: no washer or dryer; and it has wallpaper in the bathrooms and kitchen (which I hate); and a fairly steep stairway which I may not be able to handle. The dining room light fixture would work until we can replace it and the view isn’t quite as spectacular as ours, but there is a pond which is sorta visible especially from the screened balcony off the upper room.

We love our current location but the two-story condo is almost within view of our current court. The two-story is about five years older.

We could swing the price of the new unit, but we know we’d take a hit on the sale of our current place. We’d probably lose about $20,000-$25,000. The place we’re looking at was valued at $300,000 a few years ago (when the economy was strong). Now we could buy it for less than half that price! We feel certain that the values will eventually turn around.

But do we want a 2,200 sq. ft. place? That’s really large! I have a hard enough time keeping our smaller place clean. It would be better when we have house guests because we wouldn’t have to move out all our instruments to make room for company. We’ll see. If we are going to do it, I’d like to decide soon so we can put our current place on the market and hopefully sell it and get settled over the winter.

What about friends and neighbors? We love our current neighbors. It would be difficult to “start over.”