Wednesday we had appointments to look at four houses in the town where we want to move next spring. Moving NEXT SPRING...did you see that part? Two were fixers and two were in our price range, not necessarily as fixers, but also not really ideal for our family, and those two were quickly eliminated from consideration. There was one fixer that was very reasonably priced, and had a fabulous yard with a location we loved. However, the layout was not overly functional for our family, and even spending tens of thousands of dollars in rehab (it literally needed at least $20k) the layout of the house was not going to be changed. The second fixer was NOT in a great location. It had a significant amount of space, but again the layout was not great. The living areas were small and the bedrooms were huge (which is not how I prefer it to be), and there were some SERIOUS problems with the roof and water in the basement. Our realtor had brought one suggestion with him. A house that was not at all a fixer. We mentioned the budget, and he pointed out that it was just a tiny bit over the fixer budget (very true) and we would not have to put any money into it. We were still not overly enthused as it didn't have a basement, but it was on our way out of town, so what the heck?! We had been through the neighborhood before and knew that we liked the location. So we get there, and of course fell absolutely in love with it! It has three bedrooms and two baths. We were insistent that it have two separate living spaces which it does, and it was the only house we looked at that had a dining room that would fit our table. I LOVE the kitchen, and it also has a bonus room off the back of the house for additional living space. It has a two car attached garage, and it even has a two car detached garage that has been fully insulated and the walls are already drywall and painted...so instead of having a basement it's kind of like having our "basement" right outside the back door! It is also a half acre lot and it has such an incredibly private setting. In fact, the back of the lot is the beginning of a wooded section that leads to the neighborhood's common area...so no rear neighbors!
Our realtor mentioned that the sellers were very motivated. I still wanted to take some time to talk to Andrew about it, but we decided that evening that we would meet the realtor Thursday morning and write an offer. The owners are out of town so it was no problem for us to get back in the house to see it again and write the offer, and my mother and grandmothers came to see it as well. They were all equally excited about it. We put in a fair offer and headed home to wait. Before we even got home, we had a call from our realtor with a counter offer that was not only lower than what we expected, but they threw in some major appliances as well! SOLD! Since everything is in move in condition and we don't need to work on it, we decided to go ahead and move and let all three kids start school there this year. That way all of our time can be dedicated to painting and repairing a few things here, and instead of carrying two mortgages for nine to twelve months, we can hopefully only do it for no more than six. We are so excited! I'm looking forward to having the family all on one school calendar, and it will give us more opportunities together...not to mention the fact that my husband's 45 minute commute just became 10 minutes! This was not at all how we had planned for things to happen, but we could not pass up this opportunity...and we just feel so very blessed at how it's all worked out!
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