Unreal Estate Game: Missouri (The final state of Round One.)
 

I'm going to show you five houses, and then you show me the one you would pick.

Joplin - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...4_M76295-16298

Kansas City - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...6_M78845-63157

Labadie - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...ex=MO614615755

Osage Beach - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...5_M80602-21848

St. Louis - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...4_M79234-51834

Osage Beach without a doubt.

My rankings:

St. Louis - I wouldn't want to live in St. Louis, but this house actually works as long as that pond isn't toxic. And it may be, since it's St. Louis. The house is interesting, even if a bit dated, and the location is pretty good relative to services. It's a narrow win, but it's a win.

Osage Beach - Terrible location if you like to walk to services, but come on. That's now why you have this house. It's a no-brainer yes due to the view and the architecture. On another day, I'd rank it first.

Labadie - I love the house. It's a great update of an older home, and has nice acreage. It's not a great location, though. I wish it was closer to stuff.

Kansas City - I'm not wowed by the house, but it's in a reasonably walkable neighborhood.

Joplin - Great house. It's not highly original, but it's very nice. The location isn't great, but it's not horrible.

Total fail with no options for Springfield, Branson or the Bootheel area.

JoMo.

That Kansas City house is in the Briarcliff subdivision. 5 minutes to the middle of downtown, 10 minutes to Zona Rosa, and 15 to the plaza and the airport. The house doesn't have a lot of wow factor to it, it's nice and all, but it is in a prime location. A few really great restaurants within walking distance, as well.

I think I'm going with Osage Beach. That's one hell of a summer house (I just hope the roads are accessible in snow and ice...)

Osage Beach

The Briarcliff would be a good pick you can't go wrong with it.

That is a great location, and you could go your entire life not dealing with the city at all. Unless you really wanted to go to Cards or Blues games, there isn't much of anything you can't access from there and west, including the Airport directly north, . . . and a straight shot to Arrowhead/Kaufmann for that matter.

Plaza Frontenac is really a chic-chic mall, and the next nearest is the Galleria, which is just a couple minutes on the highway and is the second nicest in the metro area.

Even if you wanted to go downtown, the metrolink starts up in a very nice area [Hanley/64-40] right next to the Galleria.

For being so near some much urbanization and amenities, that area really has an air of solitude. Take a stroll on google streetview.

And that's not mentioning easy access to Interstates 29, 35, and 70.

So this is it, eh? All 50 states? What happens from here, because I'm nowhere near done dreaming about houses I'll likely never be able to afford to move in to.

Osage Beach, but all that money and I don't get a private dock?

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the entire bootheel wouldn't cost $900,000. Or at least, I couldn't find any properties in that price range.

I had a prospect in Springfield, but it didn't match up with the Joplin entry in my mind, and I could only pick one. And oddly, there were 812 properties for sale in Branson and none were in the right price range.

I've been doing some pre-work, and I think most or all of the heat winners are still for sale. So now we start paring them down until we find the most desirable house in America under $1 million.

Well thanks for doing all of this. It's been cathartic on some level to see that a good number of rich people have god awful tastes in interior decorating, so I can at least feel superior in that regard at the very least.

And oh yeah, you have to have the house in Connecticut I believe that had the two story bathroom. I loved that.