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Househunting

July 9th, 2012 at 06:10 pm

Yesterday the kids and I went to look at an open house. It is about four blocks from my mother's house. It is 1611 square feet and a very nice house. 3 bedroom, 1.5 baths. It has a very large concrete pad patio in the back yard. I mean it is big enough to set up one of those giant swimming pools like they sell in Costco, a barbecue, a picnic table, and still have room on it. The back yard otherwise was a small strip of grass, about ten feet wide, a small storage shed and a line of scraggly cedar trees against the back fence. The grass strip got a lot of sun, though so would be a good spot for a vegetable garden.

The front yard was bigger and could easily accommodate blueberry bushes and an Itlalian prune tree and the empty front flowerbeds could accommodate strawberry plants. There is also a strip down the side of the house that could be a garden area as well.

The house is in an ideal neighborhood for us. It is in the right school districts. And it is going for $224,900 which is at the low end of our price range and we could actually make the payments right now before we sell the other house. It is a two or three block walk to the grocery store.

It has been completely remodeled, but was built in 1920 and has a lot of that old house charm, but with new windows, siding and roof. I did notice a week spot in the walk in closet upstairs. I noticed it because I walked across it, but other than that I did not notice anything wrong with the house. It was very clean and did not smell of animals despite having had a cat there formerly (it was in the online photos, but the house is empty now). The carpet was very comfortable to walk on in bare feet.

It had a nice kitchen for cooking, and neither stove or the dishwasher were next to the fridge (bad to have heat users next to a cold maker for electricity costs). Not as big as I'd like for storage space, but the laundry room was so large you could put a king size bed in it and still have space for the washer/dryer and a path to walk. So I think shelving in there would expand the pantry just fine and there is space for a chest freezer. We would have to keep our table pushed against the kitchen wall when we weren't using it or find a smaller table at Goodwill or something. There is no seperate dining area.

I don't know. I'm waffling because it doesn't have a garage. DH has always wanted shop space. Yet at the same time a garage makes things cost $40,000 more. There is not enough space to build a garage one day , either.

The master bedroom was as big as the one I am in now. The whole house felt very airy and open. Maybe that is because we are used to living in 1000 square feet right now. All things being equal, I think I could be happy there. I'd certainly be happy with a lower mortgage.

There is another house I want to look at, too. We've driven by it before but never seen the inside. It is $209,000, has more space, and a bigger yard with raised beds and room to build a shop. It also has an unfinished basement. It is in the right school districts, but is not as ideally located. Well, it is walking distance to the mall, but not really to any grocery store. And it's about 2 miles from my Mom's house so not really walking distance for the kids. Not that two miles is too far, but part of the walk would be on a busy five lane road.

It has hardwood floors and a bigger kitchen plus dining room. The only thing I would worry about is the basement flooding. It is very wet here nine months out of the year and basements in older homes flood a lot because inadequate drainage was put in when they were built. I grew up having to turn on the sump pump every time it rained too hard and that is not something we want to deal with at all. So I want to look at it for water damage.

The best choice is to just keep saving our money and work on getting our house on the market and not move forward too quickly, especially with DS's new medical expenses. But it is nice to know that there are options out there that we can afford right now if we needed to. I just don't think I'm quite ready to get serious. But it is nice to look.

2 Responses to “Househunting”

  1. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1341893993

    Both houses sound like they have their plusses and minuses ... it would be hard to choose!

  2. LuckyRobin Says:
    1342025617

    They do. I think in the end I'd choose the one closer to my mother and the store and within walking distance of both schools instead of on the bus route. But...still not really ready to move I don't think. There are far more houses out there and we have plenty of time to look.

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