The Search Continues
Our house search has heated up this week! :-) Laikyn and I looked at a total of 6 houses Wednesday. The gas has been eating us up driving to look at only a few each day, so I decided to spend the day in town looking at numerous ones. (We did look at only one yesterday. We didn't look at any today. I'm worn out!)
After the last tour was over, I called Michael and said, "I just looked at a house that I want you to see and I seriously want to make an offer on it."
It's in the neighborhood we first lived in when we moved to Florence. We would like living there again. The neighborhood is 5 minutes from the main shopping area of our city. It's also right around the corner from Veteran's Park. Plus, there is a neighborhood boat launch and park that residents can use for an optional fee of $35 a year. Michael is already planning to take Nathan down there to fish. (And Dewayne, too!)
The house is very nice, and the best part is that we wouldn't have to do much in the way of fixing, changing, etc. Really, the things that are wrong with it are minor issues. At least, what we can see on the surface of things. The other properties we've looked at have, for the most part, been fixers. There are three that we've seen that wouldn't need a lot done to them. This is one of them.
It has really nice curb appeal.
It's on a corner lot and the lot across the street will never be built on. It's just woods across there. (Translation for me: BIRDS!!)
Here's a shot of the dining room, but the picture really doesn't do it justice. All three of the houses that are real possibilities for us have a dining space. That's really important to us. If a house doesn't have that, it doesn't score high in our book.
We took Michael to look at it last night and he liked it as well.
The square footage is around 1600, but it feels larger. I guess the layout is right. For a house this size, it has a large master bathroom as well as a REALLY large hall bathroom. Michael said he thought the master bath was small, but Laikyn and I informed him that it isn't. Most of the houses we've looked at in this size and prize range either don't have a master at all or only have a 1/2 master bath.
The downside to this house is that it's listed slightly above what we wanted to spend. The guy seems pretty firm on his price. Someone made an offer on it this week a little lower than what we're planning to offer, and the owner countered with an offer only slightly lower than his asking price.
However, we have crunched numbers and we know what we HAVE to sell our house for in order to bring that note down far enough to make the move worthwhile for us. So, I am confident that we can make an offer high enough that he will accept it, contingent on our selling our home, of course. If we don't get the offer on ours that we need, then we'll just have to let this house in Lakeside Highlands go. :-(
I would hate for that to be the case, but we want to be where GOD wants us most of all.
Anyway, all this running around and not sleeping well at night has worn me out. I slept good until about 3:15 last night, then I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep until around 5:00.
We had a realtor come to do a market analysis on our house and the news was really good. We have room to negotiate with people on the selling price and still have enough to put down on another house to make our monthly output low enough for more comfort in our finances.
I had written before that we weren't opposed to getting something that needed a little fixing. Well, I found out this week that with the current housing/mortgage crisis in our nation, lenders aren't so apt to give "rehab loans." That means we would have to find something that only needs minor updating that we could do as we go along. We won't be able to look at anything that needs major work, because we won't be able to borrow anything over the sell price. One good thing about that is that it made our focus a little sharper.
After the last tour was over, I called Michael and said, "I just looked at a house that I want you to see and I seriously want to make an offer on it."
It's in the neighborhood we first lived in when we moved to Florence. We would like living there again. The neighborhood is 5 minutes from the main shopping area of our city. It's also right around the corner from Veteran's Park. Plus, there is a neighborhood boat launch and park that residents can use for an optional fee of $35 a year. Michael is already planning to take Nathan down there to fish. (And Dewayne, too!)
The house is very nice, and the best part is that we wouldn't have to do much in the way of fixing, changing, etc. Really, the things that are wrong with it are minor issues. At least, what we can see on the surface of things. The other properties we've looked at have, for the most part, been fixers. There are three that we've seen that wouldn't need a lot done to them. This is one of them.
It has really nice curb appeal.
It's on a corner lot and the lot across the street will never be built on. It's just woods across there. (Translation for me: BIRDS!!)Here's a shot of the dining room, but the picture really doesn't do it justice. All three of the houses that are real possibilities for us have a dining space. That's really important to us. If a house doesn't have that, it doesn't score high in our book.
We took Michael to look at it last night and he liked it as well.
The square footage is around 1600, but it feels larger. I guess the layout is right. For a house this size, it has a large master bathroom as well as a REALLY large hall bathroom. Michael said he thought the master bath was small, but Laikyn and I informed him that it isn't. Most of the houses we've looked at in this size and prize range either don't have a master at all or only have a 1/2 master bath.
The downside to this house is that it's listed slightly above what we wanted to spend. The guy seems pretty firm on his price. Someone made an offer on it this week a little lower than what we're planning to offer, and the owner countered with an offer only slightly lower than his asking price.
However, we have crunched numbers and we know what we HAVE to sell our house for in order to bring that note down far enough to make the move worthwhile for us. So, I am confident that we can make an offer high enough that he will accept it, contingent on our selling our home, of course. If we don't get the offer on ours that we need, then we'll just have to let this house in Lakeside Highlands go. :-(
I would hate for that to be the case, but we want to be where GOD wants us most of all.
Anyway, all this running around and not sleeping well at night has worn me out. I slept good until about 3:15 last night, then I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep until around 5:00.
We had a realtor come to do a market analysis on our house and the news was really good. We have room to negotiate with people on the selling price and still have enough to put down on another house to make our monthly output low enough for more comfort in our finances.
I had written before that we weren't opposed to getting something that needed a little fixing. Well, I found out this week that with the current housing/mortgage crisis in our nation, lenders aren't so apt to give "rehab loans." That means we would have to find something that only needs minor updating that we could do as we go along. We won't be able to look at anything that needs major work, because we won't be able to borrow anything over the sell price. One good thing about that is that it made our focus a little sharper.
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