A half-million bucks worth of house

Rico says the Mike Powell article in The New York Times, about what a half-million bucks will get you depending on where you're looking, is interesting, but Rico doesn't have half a million pennies to spend on a house, so it hardly matters right at the moment:

WHERE: Wallingford, Pennsylvania
WHAT: A four-bedroom, two full- and two half-bath contemporary, with an attached office
HOW MUCH: $499,900
SIZE: 2,300 square feet
PER SQUARE FOOT: $217
SETTING: This house is on a tree-lined stretch of a two-lane road in Wallingford, an unincorporated community of 14,000 people about 25 minutes west of Philadelphia. Most of the surrounding roads are residential. Wallingford’s SEPTA station, the area’s public rail system, is about a five minute walk. For restaurants, shops and supermarkets, Media, a neighboring community, is about a mile and a half northwest.
The Wallingford-Swarthmore School District’s middle and high schools were named Blue Ribbon Schools, a program of the federal government, in the recent past. Swarthmore College, a liberal arts school with about 1,500 students, is about a mile and a half east.
INSIDE: The house was built in 1961 by Irwin Stein, an architect responsible for several modern houses in the eastern Pennsylvania area. The lower-level living room has 22-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. Between the living and dining room (on a slightly lower level) is a double-sided fireplace. The family room has several closets set into a paneled wall.
The lower level has recessed fluorescent lighting set along the perimeter of the area, a technique that creates a diffuse, glow-like light. The bedrooms are upstairs. Two of them, the master and one currently used as an office, have Plexiglas shutters that open over the living room.
Running throughout the house are cinder-block columns with steel beams inside that support the roof, allowing the space to be open.
The attached office, formerly used by one of the owners, a dentist, consists of a waiting room and reception desk, a work room, an office, a powder room and storage space.
OUTDOOR SPACE: A stone patio, garden beds and a yard.
TAXES: $13,000 a year
CONTACT: Judy Carey, Keller Williams Real Estate Brandywine Valley Office (610) 996-8993 or
(610) 399-5100; www.judycarey4realestate.com

WHERE: Albuquerque, New Mexico
WHAT: A three-bedroom two-bath adobe
HOW MUCH: $499,000
SIZE: 3,152 square feet
PER SQUARE FOOT: $158
SETTING: This house is in Sandia Heights, a neighborhood of roads winding through the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, at the northeast edge of Albuquerque. About two blocks from this house is the Cibola National Forest and National Grasslands, 1.9 million acres that span across northeastern New Mexico, parts of Oklahoma and northwest Texas, with a peak elevation of 11,301 feet (at the tip of Mount Taylor).
Tramway Boulevard, the commercial corridor in Sandia Heights, is about a mile west. Sandia Heights’ public schools — which include La Cueva High School — cite many academic and athletic achievements, including over 49 state championships in sports, a string of junior-engineer society championships, and several first-place rankings in the Model United Nations conference.
INSIDE: According to the listing agent, this house was built in 1975 by Ralph Roybal, who designed several homes in Sandia Heights when the neighborhood was first subdivided. Some of the rooms are curved or semicircular.
The floors are brick throughout, and the ceilings are tongue-in-groove wood. The kitchen, one of the curved rooms, has a trim of hand-painted Talavera tile. The living area has a kiva fireplace in the center. An indoor pool has skylights and a wood stove. The master bedroom has a fireplace, a dressing room, a walk-in closet and a separate study, with west-facing mountain views. The house’s other two bedrooms have built-in cabinets and desks.
OUTDOOR SPACE: A deck with city views, and a back patio with mountain views.
TAXES: $3,535 a year
CONTACT: Max Sanchez, Coldwell Banker Legacy (505) 228-8287; maxsanchez.com

While Wallingford is just down the road from his current location, Rico says he would take Albuquerque any day.