Have I Found My New Home?
Posted on September 15, 2007
Filed Under Personal |
As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m considering buying a home. I was looking around at various listings online, and I found what may be the perfect starter home for me.
It’s relatively close to where I live now, and it’s insanely cheap for the Edmonton market, at only $120,000 for a small 3 bedroom bungalow.
Now, you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with the house, for it cost so little. That’s a fair question. In the current market, a 3 bedroom house should not be that cheap. I’ll be honest, from the pictures, it looks like this house needs a lot of work. It would be a project, for sure.
It’s an old house, and it needs a lot of work, but it looks completely livable (obviously, I’d have to take a look at it, and get an inspection done before I put any money down on it). Honestly, I’m okay with that. For that price, in this market, I’m willing to bust my ass every weekend for a year to fix the place up. Hell, I’m pretty sure that, for that price, my mortgage payments will be less than $1000 a month (by a few hundred, actually, depending on the terms I get).
I think I’m going to talk to my parents about it, and maybe arrange a viewing sometime in the near future. I’ll admit that it looks kind of rough in the pictures, and it might be in noticeably worse shape upon closer inspection, but I’m definitely curious about it.
If it turns out to be as good a deal as I’m hoping it is, I’ll let you all know.
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7 Responses to “Have I Found My New Home?”
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If you do go for it, share your ideas (with pictures/sketches) of what you would like to do with it
Definitely, Mike. If I did buy it, I might even start a new blog, chronicling the project of renovating my house. Even from just looking at the few pictures they’ve provided, I can tell that there are certain things I’d want to tear down (all the faux-wood paneling that was obviously added during the ’70s, for example) and replace.
To be honest, even though it would be a lot of work, I’m kind of excited about the idea of (re)building my own home, and making it into something the looks and feels the way that I want it to.
There are other elements that I’m less sure about. There are some bricks in the main living area. I’m not sure that I like them, but they are part of the original “character” of the house, so I don’t think I’d want to replace them. I might paint them, though, if I were to buy the place.
My parents enjoy doing that as well. This flat is old and we’ve done quite a bit of work to fix it up, now they are looking for a new place to move into which will probably be the same deal, but more interesting.
I wanna see the listing!!!
Let’s see the house. It’s very exciting!
I drove by the property today, and it’s already sold. It’s also a piece of shit. It’s in far worse shape that it looks in the pictures–at least on the outside. And, there didn’t appear to be a backyard…at all. It just backed out onto the alley.
The front yard was relatively large, and could have been made pretty nice, with a bit of work, but I don’t want to be standing on the front lawn when I’m BBQing or entertaining.
For what it’s worth, here’s the listing (the link will probably be dead in a few days, since it’s now sold).
Oh, and, for Rose, remember how neither of us could quite picture the neighbourhood in our head? It’s actually an okay area. It’s not a great area, but it’s decent, and I wouldn’t have felt like I was going to get robbed or stabbed at any moment, despite it’s proximity to 107th Avenue.
for the next house: you can always look at getting room-mates and charge rent to cover (at least part of) your mortgage payments. It might not be as glamorous as owning your own home all on your own, but its a start.
@Allan: That’s something that I’ve considered, and which I will probably end up doing. The only problem is that I have to make enough income to qualify for the mortgage BEFORE I have the rental income coming in.
Then again, if I get lucky, and my parents co-sign for me, I’ll probably be able to qualify for a much larger mortgage, which I can then afford by having roommates, once I actually take possession of the house.