Friday, January 26, 2007

The House

So yesterday was the inspection of the house we put an offer on. A few big things came up - like the fact that it needs a new roof and that there's a major gas leak in the basement! But we were at least glad to know that it has a sturdy foundation and is a solid place. Today we sent our inspection objections to the seller, and now we have to wait and see what concessions she's willing to give. Hopefully she's willing to bargain.

While I was there I took a few pictures. I'm only going to bother posting the exterior shots because the interior is so pitifully cluttered by the current tenants' crap you can't even see the house behind it. But I think it'll be a good place. It's 2 bedrooms and 1 bath upstairs with wood floors, about 950 sf. It also has an oversized laundry room and two exterior storage units. The basement is 2 more bedrooms, a large living area and a smaller kitchen and bath, about 800 sf. It has tons of storage - linen closet, hall closet, pantry, and good closets in all the bedrooms. It has a large backyard (plenty of room for a swing set) and two covered parking spaces. It's in a great location - from there we can walk to the gym, the park, the library, the yarn store, yoga, two grocery stores, and lots of restaurants & bars. It is by far less expensive than any other duplex in comparable condition in this neighborhood. I mean, waaaay cheaper.



We like it because it'll give us the flexibility of having quite a bit of room with the baby and Jen & Micah and working from home, but it also has a built-in contingency plan. If anything drastic happened to us financially, we could always retract to 1 unit and rent out the other. Which hopefully will not happen. And then some day down the road it will serve as 2 more rental units for us when we decide to move into a more glamorous place. :)

Once we get a few must-do repairs out of the way, the next order of business will to cuten it up a little. Maybe some shutters in the front, definitely some paint and landscaping. It certainly has lots of room for improvement in the curb appeal department, but that's always the fun part of making a place your own.

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