The Hunt
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| Nice trees helped make this house attractive. |
At first glance, it was discouraging. They rarely build ramblers in this area any more. They were common 40-50 years ago, but not so much now. Two-story giant houses are the name of the game around here these days. Many of the ramblers built long ago were chopped up with small rooms and needed a lot of work. However, he advised us to drive around some of the communities within our chosen radius and see what they look like. He also sent us with four listings he had found that we might be interested in.
The entire weekend we drove around looking at houses for sale. We saw at least a couple of dozen. And among all of those, we found two that we wanted to actually go into. We scheduled appointments for the next day and just a few hours before we were to see them, both were taken off the market. That was very discouraging because we had fallen in love with the pictures we had seen on the internet of one of them.
However the next day, Tom found one that was actually on the market for us to see. It was a flip that had been beautifully done, but it was not for us because it had a swimming pool. It was hard to walk away from because we knew it was a rarity, but we did.
And then it happened. When widening the search parameters (meaning going up in price a little), we saw a house that just might work. It was a well-built house in a nice neighborhood with all living on one level--even the laundry. (Not a common thing because most laundry rooms are in the basement.) But more importantly, it had a HUGE detached workshop. I think Ward's eyes glazed over when he saw it and the house faded into the background.
After we saw that house, we spent a sleepless night thinking about if we wanted to put an offer in on this one. While there were drawbacks (needs some work), we knew this was it. It fit every important criteria we had for a house.
But could I overcome the fact that it was a above the price range we had hoped for?
Until next time...
Yup, I had the same issue with Blogger yesterday--but your pictures are beautiful. Are there 4 butterflies?
ReplyDeleteOK, it's not my money, so it's easy for me to say this ... if this house meets your criteria, go for it. Having to do work on a new-to-you house is soooo not fun, but if the basic floor plan is what you like and it's structurally sound, then it may be worth the hassle. The benefit of doing your own renovations is that you get to pick everything out yourself.
On the other hand ... it won't be the last house that comes up for sale. :) Everything will work out, I'm sure of it!
Money is one of the issues I have. We can afford this house. However, I like to have a big cushion and if we do some of the things that we think it needs, that will become smaller than I'm comfortable with. However, logically, I know we can handle it. Emotionally, it's hard. But you make all good points of which I have thought of myself when I'm operating in logical mode. Keep you comments coming. It's good to hear all of your ideas and suggestions. They help keep me on track.
DeleteAlso--Yes, four butterflies. It was so fun to watch them.
DeleteWow, I spotted all the butterflies without my glasses! :)
DeleteI'm great at being logical when it's not my decision--when it IS my decision, I go smack-dab into emotional mode. We must be wired a lot alike--I also like having a larger financial cushion--so I completely understand your hesitation in buying this house! I *think* I know what your decision is ... time will tell if I'm right ...
When it's not my decision, I can give some of the best advice out there. But when it's me, the emotions are in control for a while until my logic catches up.
DeleteThe suspense is killing me!!!!
ReplyDeleteLet's just say that the suspense has been killing me too, i.e. the suspense of figuring out the right thing to do.
DeleteAnd just for the sake of reference, I looked for over a year before I bought my house!
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time we have had the luxury of time. Our other two big moves were job transfers and we had a week in a new place to find somewhere to live. I look back and am surprised that we liked the houses as well as we did. One of them was picked out in three days because we had a four week old baby with us who was doing very little sleeping. After two days, I was so exhausted I said, I didn't care what it was, we were getting a house tomorrow.
DeleteYou are killing me with the suspense.....
ReplyDeleteIf I have time, I'll write another post tonight, but this house stuff has me busy.
DeleteI think I would have considered the one with the pool...but that's just me. I HATE summers in this area because it's just too humid to sit outside. However, if I had a pool, I would find more of a reason....
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to hear more!
The pool was not a turnoff for Ward, but I've heard way too many times how much upkeep they require. And I'm very fair skinned, so the sun is really my enemy. A pool really didn't fit into our plans. Also, the lot was not great for building a workshop.
DeletePlus it's a another expense.
DeleteFYI your "part 1" link goes to Part 2. Part 2 link also goes to Part 2. I thought i was losing my mind and clicking on the wrong link every time, lol. It took me 4 tries to figure out that the link wasn't to the right post :)
ReplyDeleteI hope you find something you both like that you feel comfortable with, price wise. If you have a budget, be careful about getting swayed too easily by houses with large price tags. As you said, you want to keep breathing room in your budget in case you have other expenses later on in life.
That's another thing that worries me about moving because if everything goes right, we should be paying off our house in 2 years or sooner, yet with the buying frenzy going on right now house prices are going up, up, up. We live in a semi-rural area so we're never going to make a big or any, really, kind of profit on our home, especially with the type of extensive work we would/will have to put into it. Personally, I think we're on the cusp of another housing bubble because speculators and flippers are at it again really badly (in Central Florida at least).
Ideally, we really should downsize to a smaller home as soon as our youngest son goes to college in 4 years. Cooling off an old 2,500 sq ft, 2-story home without much insulation in Central Florida is too expensive and I'd like less square footage to have to clean! Ideally, I'd like a 3-bedroom house that's only about 1,500 sq feet. With lots of land around it so I can't see or hear the neighbors.
That's for the link info. I was trying to do that before I rushed out the door this morning, and you know what they say, Haste makes waste.
DeleteOur finances will be okay because this has been thought out carefully, but you're right. It's easy to get carried away with a new house. At least they do it on TV all the time. And as my husband said, we have saved this money for retirement and this new house is for retirement.
While you're waiting for you youngest to go to college, how about some more insulation? A few years ago, we had an energy audit done on our house and improved its insulation and other things. It has helped with heating and cooling.
There is no way to add insulation to the house. There is no crawl space under the roof, we don't have an attic. The roof sits directly atop the ceilings. As a matter of fact, when we had it reroofed last, the nails that the roofers used (as per Florida hurricane code) went through the top layer of our plaster ceilings so they're cracked in several spots and in the closets we even had the plaster fall off and the underside of the wood supporting the shingles is showing. As for the walls, as I said they are plaster walls original to the house (1930) so for us to add insulation to the walls would mean demolish the house, pretty much! It's not so bad in the 1930 part of the house (although the upstairs gets pretty stuffy) and even in the 1950 part of the house (a single garage that was later on converted to our entry room). But the 1970's part of the house (kitchen, laundry room and my daughter's bedroom upstairs) was built out of wood with NO insulation and it's very very hot in her room. No plaster walls for her, but wood paneling and drywall ceiling right under the roof. We had all the windows changed throughout the house (29 windows!) over the last 4 years so that helped a little, along with having a newer AC unit on one side of the house and a newer (although now it's getting old) heat pump on the other. Our bill could be much higher for that size house and the insulation situation, but we're being reasonable with the air conditioning. I had an in-home energy audit done too, years ago, and implementing what they had recommended, over the 14 years, has helped, especially changing out the AC units that we had back then (ancient!) to newer and more efficient ones.
Delete