SaraF

I've always hated basements. I've had homes in the Midwest with basements and always had problems with leaking and smells and so on. The only type of basements that I might tolerate in a home I buy is a walkout basement. At least with a walkout, you'll usually have the water flow down and away from the basement walls and on nice days you can open the basement windows and doors to air it out.

Usually the cell towers are on roofs and it's usually the highest roof in the area, so you probably wouldn't even see it. The thing I hate is when they try to disguise a cell tower to look like a tree in the suburbs. They remind me of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.

Most new restaurants have pretty good ventilation and filtration and you barely smell any cooking odors around the building. I usually notice the smell of cooking from restaurants in older buildings. I know there a place I used to live at, that down the street there was a pizza place and an exhaust fan right on the sidewalk. You couldn't smell the pizza baking until you were right beside the building but it was a lovely smell to me and always made my mouth water. Is your home separated by a parking lot or something between the actual restaurant building and your home? If so, the smell should rise up into the air and not bother you or potential buyers.

Usually if the builder is bad, you can find plenty of disgruntled home owners online talking about them. I'm not really that impressed with most of today's low-end builders. The thing I hate the most are the neighborhoods where all the homes look the same. I realize that they can save lots of money but I like the neighborhoods with custom built homes. The only problem is most of the builders are out of my budget. I'll probably end up buying an older home instead when I move.

I always like to check Zillow to see how home prices are in different areas. It seems Florida and Nevada got hit really hard. I know my home's pricing has held up pretty well but one of my rentals has tanked. Of course, that's a tale of two different areas. One has great schools and low crime while the other has terrible schools and crime is rising.