Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Looks good so far!

So far the process of buying this house has been quite easy. Let me tell you a little background on how I found this diamond in the rough.
I am constantly looking at houses online, just in case there is something we can afford in the area we want. I saw this house a couple of months ago for 160K, I kept my eye on it and looked at in again about 3 weeks ago and they dropped it to 145K. I told Brett and he said we should call our agent to see what it looks like. We knew that it was almost 100 years old, so before we even got approved for financing we wanted to see if it was worth it. We made an appt, our agent said there was alot of traffic but nobody wanted to do the work. This piqued our interest more because this is the house we have always wanted.
1. Old and in need of work, check
2. huge yard in need of work, check
3. enough room for everyone, check
so we did a walk through....we loved it!! We made another appt to do a more thorough walk thru. We were there for two hours looking at everything. Luckily our Brother in law is an electrian because it needs lots of work. The first time we looked around we couldn't really see anything because there was either no light bulbs for the switches didn't work. We also couldn't find the water heater and furnace, we looked forever because the sheet said there was no basement or crawlspace...but there is!! It's a super creepy cellar with some food storage from who knows when!! There are also chimmnys you can see from the attic but there are no fireplaces with them. I believe they were covered over when someone took out the plaster and sheetrocked everything. The electrical has been updated but not in awhile. The plumbing is also so old that the main shut off is so calcified that it looks like a geod ( I don't think thats the right spelling). We had the inspection last friday and the apprisal is going to be done sometime this week. What makes this so unusual is that its a short sell. Since it's owned by the bank, they ususally take FOREVER in making a decision on the offer the buyer gives. So we thought we would have months to get stuff organized and ready. YEAH RIGHT!! Four days after we submitted our offer they bank countered and wanted to close by the 23rd of this month. Both our agent and the sellers agent went on vacation without taking files because they thought it would be awhile before we heard back from the bank. Wonders never cease!! So that's where we are now. Just waiting for stuff to get done that we can't control. I want to pack or something be Brett says we should wait until we close. We can live here in the apartment until the end of september. After we close the people have 48 hours to vacate. We will take two weeks to clean and rip out and replace carpet. After that we will move, or actually I will move some boxes everyday and then Brett will get some friends to move all the big stuff. After that we go camping with Brett's family at goblin valley and then we come home and get the apt ready for new renters!! Fun times!!
Creepy basement, we found the water heater and what we thought was the furnace. Because the lights didn't work down here we were taking pictures with the camera and then looking at them later. Taking a closer look at this picture I realized this wasn't hooked up to anything. And it's not a furnace it's a boiler. The water heater is fine. Two years ago they replaced the funace and it's now in the attic.
Going down the stairs into the creepy basement


Food storage...couldn't tell you how old

Pond in the back with 3 waterfalls, it looks in pretty good shape, the funny thing is the pump is going but the people can't afford light bulbs




back yard....needs lots of work, but when it gets done it will be awesome. Also found out the owner gifted the back neighbor some of the back yard to build a fence, the only problem? they didn't record it at the county building. So we could be jerks and say you built a fence on our land so remove it now (which we probably won't) or ask for the money that its worth (who knows)
So that's about it. There is a ton of storage and places that can be turned into rooms for when people visit. I will post pictures when the people move out. the before and afters will be astonding!!


4 comments:

Hailey Jones said...

HAUNTED!!!! (That was in my creepy high voice) Just kidding, I hope it all goes through smoothly and the work is easier than you think. It will be worth it though in the end!

Paula said...

I am excited for you guys!! I am serious about helping you move stuff over! The kids are back in school next week and we could load my van up to the top! Looks like a lot of work but I know you two will make it awesome! I can't wait to see the before and after!

finau said...

this is SO exciting!! It definitely looks like a lot of work but it sounds like you guys are up for the challenge! and you already have a good start on your food storage so that's another plus:)

sarahmarie0730 said...

wow! how exciting! and what a great price. looking forward to seeing what you do with it! looks like you guys have a few projects ahead of you!