Mansionmania Tournament: Round 3, Heat 3
 

Mansionmania continues with our Sweet 16 3rd-round contestants. You will choose among each pair of houses with the following assumptions:

• The purchase price for you is $0.
• All maintenance, utilities, property taxes, HOA fees, and cleaning is included.
• You must live in the home for the rest of your life.
• You can't travel more than 100 miles from home (via google maps drive time) other than 1 two-week vacation each year.
• You get $250,000 per year as a living allowance
• You get an additional living allowance at the cheaper home, which will be valued at 1% of any cost difference annually. I will note this amount in the poll.
• You get the furnishings. If unfurnished, you get an allowance that will give you mid-grade furniture in every room.
• You get any vehicles in the garage. But only the garage - nothing parked outside.

I encourage you to click on the maps in the listings to see the general location and neighborhood.

Also, I will only enter contestants if they have a sufficient number of photos to judge, as determined by me.

Your entries in this heat are:

Colorado:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...1_M90269-65083

Oklahoma:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...7_M75768-69701

Colorado scares me a little, because I know Colorado. Tons of people move up to the mountains and then come right back down two years later because they can't handle it. We're talking feet of snow, highly seasonal economies, and an above average number of people who move there because they don't like people.

However, most of those people don't have 15,000 square feet to live in during those winters. Cabin fever wouldn't be much of an issue in 15,000 square feet, though maybe it would after ten years of it. Hard to tell.

Oklahoma is a great house, and I just noticed the little sledding hill in Photo 1. Or maybe the owner just doesn't like outdoor stairs. I don't know. And I also see the flame-spewing rock in Photo 1, and I really wish I knew the story there. Anyway, Oklahoma is a great house and it's near a larger city than Colorado, but my hunch is that Colorado has more of the services I'd like since Aspen is a world-class town.

I'm wary of voting Colorado since I don't want to end up axing through a door to kill Shelly Duvall. But it's a bigger house and the scenery is beautiful and you can be kind of weird in Aspen and get away with it. I wish I had a bigger stipend, but I'll still go Colorado here.

Colorado all the way. Wow.

How the hell do you own something like that?

There's no reason you even have to leave that house when it's balls deep in snow. And snow skiing is one of my favorite things. Especially in Aspen.

But yea, don't hire a caretaker. You can be weird in Aspen? I'm down.

Tougher than expected, because I really like the OKC house and the Aspen house would be pretty secluded in the winter with that much snow.... but, still gotta go Colorado.

I am going to Colorado. My brother lives within the 100 mile circle. The mountains are nice. and most of all, it is not Edmond Oklahoma.
But....what are they showing me in picture 24?
https://ap.rdcpix.com/b1db7362a88699...0_h360_x2.webp



After I posted the picture, it resized to where I can see it is a gaudy bathroom

Colorado all the way.

Oklahoma is a place people pass through on the way to better places.

I'm a sucker for CO, but I'll take OK and the 500K. That's a hell of a house.

And I'll hunt down Reerun KC and drink all his booze.

I'll probably visit the CO area with the 500K though.

The lack of quality photos hurts the Colorado house, imo. But living in Aspen would not suck, even if you have to dynamite the snow in front of the garage to get out.

The Oklahoma house is a freaking resort, nothing is bad about that house. But as much as I like that place, Colorado takes this heat for me. I'll be Nanook of the North for five months out of the year to avoid blistering Oklahoma summers. I guess.

Ive been to Glenwood Springs for a soak several times. Very relaxing

I like the OK house better. And of course you have the better stipend. I like the setting of the CO house better. But I'm not sure I want to be stuck there during the winter. For a week or two a year, sure but not the rest of my life. There are a few decent lakes nearby in OK, so I can do a lot of fishing. And golfing season will be much longer (albeit pretty dang hot in the summer). I'll reluctantly vote OK here.

Let me get my snowblower, snowskis, snowshoes, and snowmobile all tuned up. CO here.

Oklahoma

Beautiful house!
$700,500 annual stipend - I could live off of that and still help others with that kind of money.
Winters a little warmer
Stillwater - 50.7 miles
Oklahoma City - 14.5 miles
Tulsa - 99.4 miles
I know I'm not allowed to go over 100 miles, but friends and family can certainly come here.

Colorado house looks like a hotel.

I'll take OK

One of my favorite things to do. Did you do a cave as well?

Oklahoma for me

On second thought, Buehler's approach is going to be mine going forward. All the houses at this point are pick and choose, so I may just take the one with the larger stipend. Should have done it here, really.

I'm not a fan of either location, but the house in CO is a bit more my style and they do have some nice micro-breweries and legal weed in CO. I guess I could stock up on both over the winter and just invite snow bunnies over to "warm up". No ****lng way would I live in OK, let alone be trapped in it for 50 weeks a year.

I have not. We're usually passing through, spending an afternoon. My brother lives in Summit County, and that is the usual hub of our Cold activities. I would definitely try that though- especially if the correct house wins this heat.

The tournament is supposed to be about which house you would like to live in, not which amount of money makes you happier. /End exhortation. Continue as you are.

Incorrect. The 3rd rule says : You must live in the home for the rest of your life.. If more money, cars, access to legal weed, etc. would add to the value of your life, it counts.

If everyone picks the largest stipend every time, that means the cheapest house wins each round. The final match will be between the 2 cheapest houses, so likely neither will have a large stipend at that point.

While potentially true if it works that way, my opinion is that any of the locations remaining are dream forever homes, and there just isn't a bad decision here on out. Some more than others, admittedly.

And maybe Buehler just made me realize what a greedy bastard I can be. :D

In fact, if the stipend is what we care about, we should rig the contest by making sure the cheapest (OK?) and most expensive (Ojai, CA?) meet at the end. Of course, Rainman could just have them meet earlier to foil the plan.

Welcome to the dark side. :D

Simple truth is I've done much worse than living in a fantastic house admittedly close to Reerun_KC for much much less than 450K. No amount of anything will undo that. LOL