Another House

I have some exciting news. We made an offer on another house yesterday! Brett was driving Kyler around (he has been missing his daily commute apparently, since we aren't in the city anymore and I don't have a car currently). Anyway, Brett spotted a new house with a for sale sign in the yard. So he called the realtor who had it listed (the only realtor, in fact) and she said it was listed for $65k but didn't have a basement. We wanted to look at it anyway because of the location, price, and looks of it.

It needs some work but there is nothing wrong with it structurally. The outside needs major landscaping around the house. The bushes are so overgrown you can't even get in the front door. An old man had lived there for years and has been in a nursing home for about three years now. They are in the process of adding a new roof but it will need new guttering. The doors and trim on the outside also need repainted. It has a one car garage and a small shed out back. The shed also needs painting and isn't the nicest thing but it is extra space for storage and sets on a concrete slab.

The inside also needs some updating. The walls are mostly white so we shouldn't have a problem there besides touching up a few cracks from settling around doorways and windows. The downstairs needs all new flooring but there may be hardwood floors under the carpeting. The kitchen needs the most updating. It has old wallpaper, old laminate flooring, and an old backsplash. The cabinets should be okay if we paint them white.

It has a nice sized kitchen, a decent living room, an okay sized master bedroom, and one bathroom. There is also a bonus area we could use as an office or toy area. Then there are two bedrooms upstairs above the garage. We have talked about some things we may be able to do like taking some walls out to open it up (depending on whether they are support walls). I thought we could add a patio door to the back yard. We would like to add a deck to it and fence the yard for the dogs. We will probably replace the shutters and do something with the front porch eventually. It has central heat but we will also want to add central air. And I'm not sure how the upstairs rooms are vented so they may need window units (which we have one of already and the house comes with a second).

Of course, first they have to accept our offer. We were supposed to hear back this afternoon and I haven't heard a thing yet. I'm sure we will have to meet in the middle on the price but even with that, we will easily be able to put down a 20% downpayment and do a 15 year mortgage and still pay about half of what we pay for rent in our KC apartment right now. Only time will tell, and if we don't get this house it isn't the end of the world. We are taking what we can get right now and we know that if it's meant to be, it will happen.