My youngest daughter is buying her first house.
So many people are afraid of home-buying because it has been made unnecessarily complicated by real estate laws, mortgages, and so on. Of course, all this complication benefits those who made it complicated so getting it changed would be near impossible.
Still, she looked around until she found a home that fit her criteria: price, location, degree of decrepitude (in her price range, there won’t be a pristine ready-to-move-into house), and neighborhood ambiance. A lot of people skip that last part, but we think it’s a citical one. If you can’t get along with your neighbors, it’s much harder to move if you’re buying the house. Your neighbors and how the neighborhood looks and feels is important before you commit to buying a house.
My daughter knows this, so her house has to meet all of her criteria, or she won’t buy.
She found one, though. It’s larger than she hoped to get – 1300 square feet, a fenced yard, a deep full front covered porch, new windows and roof, fireplace, hardwood floors, no termites, no plumbing or wiring problems. It’s in serious need of having the drive-way re-poured, the fence was bent (fixable with a forge, which we have) by falling tree limbs from the ice storm, there are a lot of downed limbs still lying about from the ice storm. The interior needs paint and a good cleaning. The wiring is good, but it needs upgrading to meet a modern girl’s needs (computer, printer, cell phone charger, TV and DVD player, sound system, kitchen equipment, electric cat fountain….). All the lighting fixtures need to be upgraded for greener use. She wants to install a dishwasher and new fronts for the kitchen cabinets, and the bathroom (single) needs a new lavatory and toilet – they work, but they’re filthy. It may need a new tub, too. And she’ll need appliances – stove, refrigerator, washer and dryer.
She considered all of that in her cost estimate. Since she’s been pre-approved for a mortgage of $45,000, and the house she chose is selling for $19,000, she qualifies easily. The appraisal is for $59,000 so she could take out the full $45,000, buy the house and have money for repairs and remodeling – which was her plan all along.
The house is that cheap because it was foreclosed upon – it had been a rental and the landlord defaulted in his loans on several houses.
So, if all goes as planned, in a month or two, she should be a home owner.
And I’ll get space back in my house. Living in my 2 bedroom house with her three bedrooms of stuff and my youngest son’s household goods while he and his wife are deployed to Iraq has been squeezing me. I can’t even get to most of my son’s stuff with all of her things in the way. Once she’s out, I’d like to box his stuff all up in mouse-proof bins and store it in the shed out back.
Then I can finally do the remodeling I’ve been planning since just before she moved back in and he decided to use me as free storage. It will have to wait until she’s made her new house habitable with clean-up and appliances and essential repairs, but that shouldn’t take too many weeks.
Of course, if something funky happens and she can’t close on this house, I’ll have to wait until she finds another.
That could be years.
