Jay's Rants: The New House

We bought a new house today, and started the moving process. Loads of fun.

We’ve been looking at houses since January. The prices are really low; good for buyers, bad for sellers. But, we’re buyers, so it worked out. We had an offer on another house that we waited on for 3 months (short-sale), but the realtor was incompetent so we cancelled the offer and dropped her. A friend from Poker, as it turns out, is a Realtor, and he did a far superior job. He actually knows how to deal with short sales and foreclosures, and was exceptionally diligent about getting everything done.

The house was originally sold in March 2006 for 536,000. That didn’t work out for whoever bought it, so it foreclosed, and we picked it up for less than the older smaller house we’re living in now.

We’ve always joked about the size of our current house. For years, it was just the two of us. There were 2 bedrooms we never used. I referred to them as the west wing. Now, there are three of us, and we still have sufficient room. One room went to jack, and the other is rarely-used guest bedroom (although we did have some recent opportunity to share it). If we have another kid, though, we’d be out of extra space. But, in all honesty, we don’t really need a new house. But, with the way the market is, now is the time to get one. It became WANT over NEED. Its a much bigger house for less money; now is the time. This will give us 2 extra bedrooms and the loft. If we had another TV, the loft could be a video game room or something; maybe the nieces and nephews will hangout there.

I never mentioned the upcoming purchase to my family because I thought it would be a nice surprise when someone comes down to visit, but no one has any short-term plans to do so. Instead, I waited until after we closed before sharing. It was a done deal at that point, so no reason for anyone to be anxious about it. Several times along the way I was tempted to tell people about it, but after a while it became a challenge not to. (In the interest of full disclosure, Dawn knew about it because she was here as we were working on it.)

The new house is about 3,000 square feet, which is bigger than our current house of about 2,000 square feet. It doesn’t have a pool, but the community pool is nearby, and we have a lake view.

Rooms

3.5 bathrooms
5 bedrooms (1 to be an office)
kitchen and a pantry-like closet
living room
dining room
2 car garage
laundry room
some other room next to the kitchen… for eating breakfast?
2 walk in closets in the master bedroom (there are other closets throughout, but these ones are small rooms by themselves)

Features

Built in 2006
Central Vacuum
Intercom/audio system throughout
Granite countertops
Roman tub
Lake view
Probably a bunch of other stuff that I forgot, but Gina would love to address

Issues

The carpets are trashed. Even if the weren’t, though, we can’t have carpets on the first floor due to the dogs. Flooring is being installed tomorrow. Something needs to be done on the second floor eventually, but no time soon
We need a fence in the back yard again due to the dogs
There’s some water damage in one of the bathrooms. We need a roofer to make sure its no longer an active leak (inspector doesn’t think it is), and repair the damage
Needs some paint and some touch ups, but nothing drastic
There aren’t any ceiling fans, and lighting is minimal (no rush, again)

We’ll move some stuff Thursday and Friday, but the big day is Saturday. Gina has been at work setting up the utilities, etc.

The old house needs some work, then we’ll see about renting it. If that doesn’t work out, then we’ll hold off as long as we can to see if the market recovers at all before selling it.

Here are some pictures. They don’t really give an accurate representation of size. I missed the kitchen and the back yard. (I have some on my phone, but not this camera)

Gina and Jack at the closing