That was the big difference between Ray and Kyra. Where she saw a worthwhile investment, a fixer-upper so to speak, Ray just saw a complete dump. Better to knock it down and build something newer and better.
Of course, there was no way he could live in such a place, at least not while it had electricity. He had known a Wizard once who could power his whole house on residual magic energies. Of course, he had been immensely powerful and far, far old than Ray. He had guessed a century, give or take twenty years, yet he still looked to be in his early sixties. Wizards and Witches had longer life spans than regular people, living at least two full centuries naturally if they didn't overextend themselves. It seemed like such a long damn time to him, and when you got down to the root of it all that was what frightened him the most.
Not the uncertainty, not the misery, not the resentment of the people around him, but the fact that he would have to live with it for that long. It made him envy regular people, everyday men and women working nine to five. They didn't need to watch their back for errant Warlocks or vengeful Vamp Lords, they didn't have to live without electricity for fear of blowing up a house and most of them had never killed a man in cold blood.

She sighed as she looked at him, and it just about cut him to the bone. Maybe he was just sensitive from the nerves and the pain, but he couldn't hope to fulfill any of her suburban fantasies. Whatever the future held for them it would not be normal.
He couldn't let these thoughts consume him though, not right now.
He focused himself and stretched out his right hand, and with it his magical senses. Call it a magical sonar...sort of. More like a drone, a small projectile of energy that could search every room and find magical residue.
It only took about thirty seconds and it came back negative.
"Nothing here, probably just a lot of mould and mildew. Let's go."