Our home search in our desired Old Irving neighborhood continued. Finding a modest size and affordable home was starting to prove difficult. We stumbled across a vintage condo conversion in a little amazing sub neighborhood of Old Irving called The Villa. Click on the link to learn about this little hidden slice of heaven. If you are ever up for a Sunday stroll, I encourage you to park the car and walk the neighborhood. You will love the stunning architecture and mature trees.
You can also read more about this neighborhood and others at The Chicago Neighborhoods. Love all of his neighborhood graphic designs.
While the condo completely went against our garage and private back yard must-haves, we fell in love with The Villa and decided to have an open mind and give the condo a look anyway. It was a large two level, 3 bedroom 3 bath unit with a family room that lived like a single family home. It also had a cool vintage vibe that we fell in love with. From the surface it needed only a few cosmetic touch ups. To our surprise we could totally see ourselves living here and so we put in an offer. The inspection was completed and beyond the minor cosmetic issues there were a number of repairs that would need to be completed. The issues weren't serious, but they just added up. We weighed the repair costs and decided that putting additional money into to a condo investment was not something we wanted to do. And so our search continued.
Realizing it was going to be difficult to find a home in our price range we expanded our search to neighborhoods bordering on Old Irving. And then BAM - we found one in Mayfair Park. From the online listing photos I could tell before we scheduled a walk through, this home was the one. We called our agent and set a tour date. And as I suspected, we became proud owners of a Chicago Bungalow. It was meant to be.