I agree that burglaries can happen in any neighborhood. I'd be more concerned about the crime on the streets. What city are you talking about? If it's West Phila., I could tell you a lot because my daughter and her husband bought a house there last summer to be near the university for her graduate school and his commute to DE. It's the same thing there, nice neighborhoods surrounded by poverty and its problems which unfortunately know no boundaries. The 3 local universities have their own security patrolling the streets in addition to the local police department. The elementary school in her neighborhood is one of the best in the city because although it's a public school,it receives funding and remains affiliated with U of P's school of education. For high school most of the kids either go to private schools or one of the charter schools in the city. It sounds like you'd have that to consider too. You need to investigate the stability of the neighborhood you're interested in. A friend of mine lives in another part of the city which in the past 10 years has seen a bit of a turnover. Absentee landlords have bought up real estate and rented the houses or converted some of them into apartments. My friend complains that the tenants, not having a vested interest in the property or the neighborhood, have let appearances slide, and she's worried about property values. Living in the city has its pros and cons like anyplace else. My daughter's enjoying being close to so many things you don't get in our rural area. There are forums you can find on line to inquire about specific towns and you can ask about the safety issue there.

Hi hi hi! Sorry I haven't checked back in here. We're loving the house. We've done a lot of repairs and painting (I'm covered in paint right now as I type, actually), and it's getting nice and cozy and homey. I especially LOVE our basement classroom setup. We're not completely unpacked yet, even though we've been here a month and a half now. There are still a few boxes scattered around that we're taking forever to unpack. Hopefully in the next week or two. I'll post inside pictures soon. Love the Harry in the window, Kat. :) Sigh.

While I appreciate your post writers block, I am at the mercy of houzz. I asked them to pull it and obviously they have not yet. Another poster here just recommended deleting the messages. I've never done this before but once people started to post about how violent some neighbors can get etc. I thought it was best to try to take down the post. I got a lot of great feedback on here and I appreciate it and everyone seemed to say what they wanted to say and I got a lot of great advice so as far as I'm concerned, it's OK to take down. I think it's ridiculous when the website doesn't allow you to delete your message. The funny thing is you can delete all your messages but the original one, that seems odd to me.

I don't know where these figures come on the amount allocated to furnishing a home. In my experience, if you are buying your first home, you are going to be strapped for cash - at least for the first year or so. Most people I know made do with donations; thrift store acquisitions, odds and ends accumulated along the way and disposable furniture from places like IKEA - or they made do without. If one is moving to a second or third home, surely one has acquired furniture along the way and doesn't immediately discard it. Again, in my experience, most people with middle class incomes make do with already existing furniture and augment as needed. While it's nice to get new stuff, most people I know bought furniture gradually.