Moving on Up

When we moved to Seneca, we didn't have a house. We lived with my parents until we found and purchased our current home. It was a great deal and something we planned on being at least somewhat temporary. We wanted to live in it and fix it up, and then turn it into a rental property eventually. It's a little smaller than we wanted, only a one car garage, and doesn't have a basement. We have been keeping our eye on the housing market and in yesterday's paper I noticed a house for sale that seemed to meet almost all of our wants. I called about it this morning and we planned to look at it the first of next week. As Brett thought about it, he decided that we probably better jump on this house since they don't seem to stick around too long. So we looked at it early this afternoon.

The house is pretty nice from the outside. It could use an updated pair of garage doors, and probably some new exterior doors at some point as well. There is an older shed in the backyard that needs some new shingles and a new paint job. I was anxious to see what the inside was like. When we walked in, the living room was pretty spacious. It needed a good cleaning and fresh paint but it was nice. Next was the kitchen. It was pretty large with quite a bit of counter space but the arrangement just made it seem really crowded. It's livable for now, but something we would definitely want to open up to the living room at some point. There were three good sized bedrooms on the main floor, all needing new carpet and fresh paint. The bathroom also needs a facelift but it's roomy enough and not in too bad of shape.

The basement was the next part of the house we saw. It was HUGE although it did need some work. All the walls were paneling and the ceiling wasn't in very good shape. The carpet was pretty old as well. But there was a very big family room, two other rooms blocked off to be used as bedrooms (one had a closet but the other did not and neither had fire safety windows). There was also a small kitchenette in another room that housed the water heater and furnace, and there was a bathroom with a concrete shower. In addition to all that, there was an unfinished storage area. The garage was spacious as well. It was a two car garage but had a lot of space toward the back for all kinds of boy toys. There is a patio out back that was in good shape, as was the yard and landscaping for the most part.

We found out that the house had already had a couple of other offers but that the seller was ready to get rid of it, and would accept a reasonable offer. Brett and I both really liked this house and the potential it had. Nothing needs to be done right now (except paint and bedroom carpeting) but we could definitely make it into something we love over time. The location is nice, and only about 1/2 block or so from my parents. So we decided to proceed with what we felt was a very reasonable offer that she would hopefully accept. As it turned out, she accepted it and we are hoping to close at the end of May. We are scheduling an inspection for next week and had already spoken to the bank a few weeks back about a different house that we put a higher offer in on. So it looks like things are going to move along nicely and we should be moving (again) in June. I am very excited about this house!