Kristel's Blog

Yesterday I looked at a couple homes.

The first was just down the street from my parents. It was a townhouse, and okay. It’s been on the market since the end of November, which might not be a bad thing. It definitely needs some work: new paint, hardwood floors need refinishing, the screen door needs replaced, a new bathroom lamp, or at least something that sheds some light, the kitchen seriously needs some new countertops, new bottom cabinets, and it looks like they once had a leak and the bathroom, and while it’s been patched up decently, they could’ve done a little better. Basically, the current owners haven’t done any work since they moved in, or the people before that… Well, that isn’t entirely true. The current owners did put in a new tile floor in the kitchen, and they started to finish the basement. They also added an additional latch to the tops of the doors to keep their kid from getting out (weird, I know.) and all their phone jacks have been moved up as well. However, the place has a huge amount of closet space, and some decent size rooms, and if I finished the half of the basement they started, I bet we could have a killer rec room down there, which would probably add to the property’s value if I do all those other changes, and maybe in a couple more years I could sell it and buy something that has its own backyard. There is the standard small, partially fenced, yard, and it’s big enough to tie Pepper up outside for me to let her out. I can find out what it’ll cost me to fence the back stretch.

The second house was a semi, and it was very nice… but a little over my price range. I have enough for the down payment, but I’d be left with only $1000 to cover all the other expenses… and the other expenses are a lot. Land transfer, moving fees, home insurance, laywer fees,… It also had an offer coming in on it at 6pm that night, so it wasn’t worth my while. It had two bedrooms, all one level, but a huge basement & recroom downstairs, the backyard was very nicely landscaped, and the whole little kitchen was very attractive. But as I’m not considering this property, I’ll stop reminding myself about how nice it was.

Stan’s lining a couple more viewings for this week; possibly tomorrow, erm, today at this point. A couple more townhouses, in a different neighbourhood, that used to have a bad reputation, but my Auntie Trev, who lives around the corner, says they’ve started selling them off in the past 8 years, and it’s starting to come around. Key word there would be “starting”. But it is right across the street from groceries, and both are listed lower than the one I’ve already looked at, and it sounds like they’ve done a lot of updates. Then again, one has been on the market since June, so i can’t help but wonder what’s wrong with it, and the second is listed 10,000 less than the other one in the complex, but it’s only been listed for a little over a week. We’ll see how it all goes.