Condo Viewing #2
Posted on October 15, 2007
Filed Under Personal |
I went and looked at some more condos this evening, and I think I may have found my new home. There were actually 2 units that I was really interested in, based on the listings I had been shown on Friday. After looking at the units in person, those two are still the ones that I am the most interested in, but the “order of desire” has been reversed.
The unit that I was originally most interested in is now the one that I’m 2nd most interested in. It’s the larger, and less expensive of the two, but the other one has a few selling points that make me like it a lot more.
It is smaller than the other unit—by about 100 square feet—but it has a patio (it’s on the ground level), which the other one doesn’t have. It also comes with heated underground parking, which is very nice, especially in the winter.
There was actually another unit in the same building as the one I’m interested in, that was a little bit nicer, but it was almost $14,000 more expensive, and it didn’t have underground parking. It did have a washer/dryer installed, but no underground parking.
In fact, the parking spot in the back lot that came with the unit actually had to be rented for $25 a month. I’m not quite sure why that is, but whatever. The point is, the other unit is cheaper, and has underground parking. Sure, the appliances aren’t quite as new, but that’s not a huge issue to me. I will want to eventually get a washer/dryer installed (but I’ll need to get the hook-ups installed, first), but there is a common laundry room that I can use until I can afford to do that.
It is smaller than my current apartment, I will admit, but I think it’s worth it, in the end. The patio is larger than my current balcony, the kitchen is nicer, and it has hardwood laminate flooring, which is pretty nice. I may have to replace my kitchen table with a folding table, that I can pull out when I have guests over (the kitchen isn’t an eat-in kitchen, but it has a little window cutout thing that I can eat at, with a barstool, to save space that would otherwise be occupied by a kitchen set).
I am going to try and get in to the bank in the next couple of days, to make sure that I can get approved for a mortgage that will allow me to buy the place. As long as I can get a large enough mortgage (which shouldn’t be an issue), I think I’ve found my place. It’s already vacant, so I can take possession and move in right away (after I’ve repainted it…I hate the salmon colour that is currently on the walls).
Some of you know that I was looking at a lot of units in the Boyle Street area. I was concerned about this fact, as were many of you. But, as it turns out, Boyle Street is a much larger community than I had previously realized. This building is not in the “stabby stabby” part of Boyle Street. It’s actually in a very nice area. It’s super close to the river valley. There seem to be a lot of families with kids in the area. There is a school and a playground nearby (which doesn’t matter much, since I’ll probably be living somewhere else by the time I have kids, but my point is that it’s not exactly in the inner city).
On top of all of that, it’s still in the area of the city that is considered Downtown East (aka: Boyle Street), so it will be getting a fairly large cash injection in the next few years (assuming, of course, that there isn’t a massive paradigm shift by the time the ballots are done being counted from today’s municipal election). This means that the area will only be getting nicer as time goes on, and the resale value of the condo will probably give me a decent profit when I’m ready to sell (assuming, of course, that the economy hasn’t suffered a terrible collapse).
As you can probably tell from reading this post, I’m pretty excited about this place. Hopefully, it will all work out for the best. For now, though, I guess that’s all there is to say.
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4 Responses to “Condo Viewing #2”
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Congrats, take a few pictures when you move in
Well, after it’s painted of course!
Thanks Mike. I will definitely take pictures of wherever I end up buying, whether it turns out to be this place or not. Of course, I need to get a new camera, first, as my old one inexplicably died on me a few weeks ago. I’ve had to make due with my cell phone camera in the meantime, but it’s an older phone, so that camera isn’t the best quality.
[...] 100% sure yet, but it looks like I probably won’t be able to get the unit I mentioned in an earlier post. It may be possible to get them to accept an offer that is within my price range, but it’s [...]
[...] a viewed more condos this evening. They were in the same building as the one I mentioned after my second viewing. They all had the exact same floor plan, but they were in different parts of the building, and in [...]