House Hunting

After months of looking online for houses we were finally able to go on a few showings! I know it can take a while and with the baby due in September, we're trying to find a place that could work for us.

So far, I've seen a total of four houses with my friend since my husband has a deadline coming up and he's super busy. This way, we weed out the bad houses and my husband gets to see the ones that are worth considering.

House #1

It said it was a two bedroom two bath house. The pictures were great and made it look like there was a ton of potential. When we went inside, the first story was decent. Kept up well and mostly usable space. Part of the ceiling in the kitchen was a little low, but not terribly. Then, we went upstairs. It was an older house with the steepest stairs. Once we got up there, the ceilings were so slanted that there were parts where I couldn't even stand up...and I'm short! There was no real closet and the stairway was super unsafe. That was not going to work. Plus, the backyard fence could be touched by spreading out your arms from the back of the house. 

House #2

This was, by far, the most interesting situation. When we pulled up, there were five cars in the driveway and a light on. I was surprised that the people could be home, but my realtor assured me that some people don't leave for showings. We walked up to the front door and there was trash in the bushes. Clearly, this place needs to be cleaned well. We were told to come in after knocking and there was a lady making lunch telling us to walk around. She couldn't answer many questions because she said it was her brother's house. This house had a ton of potential, but clearly the people there didn't want to move. There was trash all over and the deck had pots filled with frozen water just hanging out all over between the empty beer bottles and bags of fruit. It was interesting. There were a total of four people upstairs and all of them said to look around. When we went to the basement they had turned it into three more bedrooms. Some of them were vacant, but one of them had a man with no shirt on watching tv in the dark. He told us to turn on the lights and look around...ok. One of the doors was locked and after looking at the rest of the rooms, a teenage girl came out in her pajamas from sleeping. What?! They knew we were coming! It was so awkward. Fortunately, we decided to pass on that house because it literally backed up to the railroad that gets pretty busy and is in the middle of town.

House #3

Best location ever! Adjacent to the library and across the street from a park and wonderful elementary school. Plus, it would put my husband 10 minutes closer to work. We were really hoping to like this one. The outside of the house looked great and the yard was amazing. The inside, however, left much to be desired. There was no space for a queen sized bed so the current occupants were using the living room as their master bedroom! The kitchen was decent, but we would have needed all new appliances. This house was disgusting and not kept clean at all. They had a cat (or two?) and had their litter boxes out and litter all over one of the rooms. We really tried to envision what it could be, but with the cost of renovations and the time it would take, it wasn't the house for us.

House #4

Is my favorite so far! It's small quaint and cozy, but has been updated well. There were only a couple of downsides like the one bathroom on the lower level and the second bedroom is a little small with slanted ceilings, but other than that I loved it. It had a great yard and so many wonderful features to it. It's going for a great price so I'm taking Phil to see it Monday. The realtor says it's going to go quickly and there's an open house Sunday so we'll see. If it's taken off the market by Monday, then it's not the right house for us.

I'm looking forward to taking my husband with me Monday to continue searching. There isn't much in our price range right now in any of the areas we would consider. Hopefully the market will pick up with spring coming soon!