How exciting. They can make sure it doesn't have black mold or anything.

It does not! It does have mediocre insulation and some questionable lighting fixture placement decisions but overall it's pretty good. The real estate agent seems to have decided they're doing this as research for a school project rather than as an attempt to buy real estate, and is unusually detailed and candid in his explanations as a result.

Gosh, that's the most helpful result that has ever eventuated from somebody not taking a teenager seriously! And means they will not stand out as very odd if they ask weird things about its zoning and how much maintenance the yard wants and stuff.

The real estate agent doesn't know a ton about zoning, but she knows what words people who are looking to change the purpose of a building tend to use and can point them in the right direction. Lawn maintenance is one of those things where any three people will have at least two opinions, but this place doesn't have a neighborhood association so there wouldn't be three people whose opinions actually matter.

"Really? My dad is a cop and he gets calls about people not maintaining their yards - not like 'it's six inches tall' but like 'it's getting weed seeds everywhere'."

The real estate agent makes a face like that level of lawn non-maintenance was so outside her overton window that it hadn't occurred to her to think about it and makes some vague noises about well yes, some level of maintenance is just necessary.

And how big is this yard.

This particular house is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so the edges of the property aren't obvious, but the agent can point out the boundary lines. It's a pretty big piece of land by suburbia standards, but much of it is woods that don't need any maintenance and the nearest neighbor who could theoretically complain about the smaller grassy part is a long way off.

Hmm, all right. (Househunting is kind of fun.)

House-hunting is oddly fun. Somehow the idea of running a school seems a lot more real when she can imagine herself giving a lecture in this room, or looking over students' diagrams at that table.

There are a lot of prospective houses out there, and it probably makes sense to look at at least a few different ones before making an offer.

Bella agrees.

The housing market of the rural western United States is happy to provide more prospective houses than even a pair of teleporters can reasonably do tours of.

Then they only need deign to view the very loveliest ones.

Margaret makes a spreadsheet with the price, size, state of repair, floor plan quality, zoning law situation, neighbor situation, et cetera of each one, and sends it to Bella with her top few choices highlighted.

"Oh good, we both like this one."

"I guess now we make an offer and see if they believe we mean it or if we need to show up with the cash in a briefcase or something."

"It'd be kind of funny if we did! I've never carried a briefcase, perhaps I'd take to it."

"I think you're supposed to use a check, but it is a funny mental image. I wouldn't want to use a briefcase for most things when backpacks are a more symmetrical weight and leave both your hands free, but maybe briefcase people know something I don't."

"It's aesthetic. With a backpack your options are student and hiker. Briefcases open 'businessperson'."

"I think I would look ridiculous trying to dress like a businessperson. You'd look excellent, though."

"I don't care much about what I wear, honestly, but I can imagine caring. I'd probably go full on fantasy paperback wizard lady if I did though. Not sure what that implies for choice of bags."

"That would be so awesome. I guess if I ever get bags of holding figured out, that'll be the logical choice, but aesthetically . . . cloth shoulder-bag embroidered to match your wizard robes? Heh, you could embroider actual runes on them and have magic robes."

"That sounds dangerous."

"Yeah, probably more likely to get damaged than a tattoo even if you could enchant them to be durable without making them stiff."

"Yeah, you could get away with it but I'll probably just do the stars and moons thing."