There is a house on a street where a lot of the girls' friends live, nearby to the center of our part of town, nearby to a park. In the house lived a man. He was very old. My friend, who lives directly across the street from the house, told me about 6 months ago that the old man's daughter was thinking of bringing her father to live with her, and of selling his house. Other houses on the street have been updated in the past 5 years ... kitchens redone, basements dug, etc. [we're talking about an old, old street with old, old houses on it --- not beautiful houses, for the most part, but at least one is on the national historic register -- there isn't much room for expansion with them, so they get built up, and DOWN, via basements]. This old man kept his house clean, but he didn't update it. At all.

The old man died last week. I was really sort of hoping he'd last another year or so (and even then, I just wanted him to go live with his daughter, not to die!), due to the whole not having a job thing. So when my friend initially told me the news, and of the possibility that I could just snatch the house up directly from the daughter without having to deal with it being offered to the public, I said, "WO!!! I don't have a job! No! Too bad the timing didn't work out, but I can't do this."

Then I thought about it.

I mean, there will be probate. There will be sorting of the man's assets and such. There will be things that have to be done. No one was telling me that I have to secure a mortgage and sign the deed next week. Right?

The reason why this house seems really good to me .... it's NOT updated, which means two things: 1) it should be pretty cheap; and 2) we can make it truly ours. So many houses are updated in order to put them on the market, and we don't usually like the decisions people make with their kitchen re-dos and such. With this one, we can do our OWN kitchen. It will likely even be an addition.

The house has its negatives. The back yard is little, and there's a fence along it ... guess what's on the other side of the fence? The train!! Boston's green line of the T. Not necessarily ideal. The house also doesn't look that big. It's likely 3 bedrooms, but one of the 3 may be itty-bitty. But there's also the whole possibility of an addition to expand the kitchen downstairs, and the bedrooms upstairs.

If it means that I can get a single family home (no condo fees!) for potentially 50% of what it would otherwise require, I'll live against the T tracks for a few years. Definitely. J would live across the street from her best friend, and E would have FOUR of her good friends (if not more!) on the street. Can you imagine?

Of course, I really have no clue. I'm hoping it goes on the market [well, is it considered "on the market" if it's done privately?] for under $500,000, but the daughter may have more in mind. I am not sure, with the market in the shape it's in, that she could get too much more ... although I can't be the only one to see potential in the place. I'm also assuming it has 3 bedrooms, and that it's not actually rotting to pieces. It is really a great unknown. But it's fun to imagine that it goes our way.

I think if it does go our way - the first thing I'll do is paint it. I'd hate to come home to a pile of mustard every day.

Labels: housing

posted by Zuska @ 1:52 PM 2 comments

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Open Houses

In a continuation of my obsessive behavior, J. and I stopped into a few open houses today. They were both listed as 3 bedroom condominiums - one was 1297 square feet (which I thought sounded small, but wanted to see what it looked like), and the other was 1500 square feet. Both of them were asking approx $519,000.

The first one was weird, because you walked in the house and the first thing on your left and right were bedrooms. I don't like that. I just was thinking earlier today that one thing I don't like about our apartment is you have a clear line of sight from my entry door to my bedroom. I don't want people instantly peering at my (always) unmade bed. Get out of my room.

But the living room and dining room were nice. They weren't too small, but I don't think I could have gone much smaller.

It also should NOT have been listed as a 3 bedroom. Two of the bedrooms were very good sizes, but what they called a third bedroom actually seemed to be part of the master suite. It had a crib and a dresser in it, and that filled it up. There was no way a twin bed could have fit in there with room for anything , and there is no way that I could have convinced one of the girls to take the tiny room.

The rule here (is it everywhere?) is that in order to call something a "bedroom" it has to have a window and a closet. This closet was about 8 inches deep and had shelves from floor to ceiling.

If we had only one kid, I would have loved it. The tiny room would have been a perfect (and bigger than required) office. I don't, however, have only one kid.

The second condo was bigger, and better suited to us:

You walked into a living room and dining room -- it was a very open space, but the current occupants had a japanese curtain up dividing the two rooms. We probably wouldn't do that. The kitchen was little, and didn't have a gas range (a requirement for Beloved).

You then proceeded down a narrow hallway lined in shelves (which I liked a LOT)...

to two (currently) kids' rooms. They were also good sized.

The master suite here was a loft. There were very rickety feeling spiral stairs going from the dining room (?) to the upstairs, and the stairs came out pretty much in the middle of the bedroom. The suite as a whole was nice - there was a bathroom, skylights, a huge walk in closet, and a small study.

But the main area, where the bed goes, ONLY fit a bed. And a full sized bed at that (we have a queen). There was one alcove right under a skylight which you could not access without crawling over the bed.

$519,000 will probably be the outside edge of what we can afford in a year. That will result in mortgage payments (including taxes and home owner insurance) of approx $3600/month. Which is really freaking high. And they're going to be places we "settle" for.

OR

We can rent a 4 br, up to 1800 square foot apartment for $2800/mo.

I am thinking it will be better to keep renting, while building up a down payment and getting annual raises and bonuses. Then, in 3 years, we'll be able to buy a place that we aren't settling for.

[some examples of the space and quality of available rentals]

The problem that is raised with that plan ... We'll then be only 4 years from losing one of the kids to college, and 6 years from the other. So is it a worthwhile investment?

But yet, we don't plan on kicking the girls in the pants to get them out the door right after graduation, and we would like our home to be their home throughout college. I always hated stories of people who left for college and before the car even went around the corner, their room was turned into an office or a sewing room. We don't want to do that.

Really, I'm stressing prematurely. But I have been enjoying looking at spaces and prices, and knowing what is needed. I know how much monthly payments will be, I know that I don't like bedrooms near the entry way. The only reason, really, why I thought I could buy now is because there has been story after story about the housing market doing a nose dive in this area.

We used to say, before the market shifted, that we would rent here, and then buy/build a second home. We've been on the fence of country v. coast. I think I may start looking at that option again.

Labels: housing

posted by Zuska @ 5:41 PM 4 comments

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Ready to let go??

I have posted several times about my frustration, aggravation and anger with my brother. He has been obnoxious, irrational, selfish and generally impossible to get along with in the past two years. His wife has also been hard to understand.

HOWEVER.

The past few times I have been here in my old town, where both he and my parents live, he has actually been NOT obnoxious. And NOT hard to get along with. We haven't become suddenly close and bonded, but we have gotten along, and we have not argued, and he has not offended me.

I think, perhaps, it is time for me to let go of the things that upset me in the past (his screaming and yelling at me on the day of his wedding, for example), and just find where our relationship is right now.

It is still hard, however, to not be insanely jealous over the fact that he not only has his own house, but he designed it, and a lot of their furniture and decor is *exactly* what they wanted. I have for so long picked up cheap furniture because it was all I could afford and I needed furniture that it is very foreign to me that someone can have *exactly* what they want.

I tried to remind myself, as i felt the jealousy contorting my guts in circles, that the reason why a house (entirely designed by us ... all the space we need ... furniture that is our first choice) is out of reach for us is because of where we chose to live, and where we choose to live. We don't want to come back to the town where I grew up, where housing prices are tons lower and land is available in larger quantities. It's not where we want to be.

I'm still jealous, though.

Labels: brother, housing

posted by Zuska @ 1:19 PM 0 comments

Monday, November 06, 2006

a flop

well, the apartment wasn't so hot. it would be nice to have the extra rooms that it offers, but the rooms we already have (living room, for example) are much smaller there than they are here. Which means we wouldn't get the benefit of extra rooms, because they would instantly be full of our stuff that doesn't fit into the rooms that we already do have.

the agent who showed us the place knows our building well. he said he thinks we have about 1000 square feet now, and that the new one is 1200.

we also didn't like the set up. we would miss our open floor plan, and end up trading it for basically a single hallway with a bunch of little rooms coming off of it. the kitchen was awful, and although it's advertised as an "eat in kitchen" - it has this built in shelf/table thing that is meant to seat 2. The 4 of us could not eat there. Then there was this odd room off the kitchen that would fit our table, but i'm not sure we could all fit in there with it, and if we could, we'd feel like we were eating in a closet. Furthermore, when you walk in the buliding and look down the hallway, all you see are the old crusty washer and dryer .... not fun.

what i loved about it .... the front stairway belongs solely to the third floor (the one we were looking at) and there was a pretty big area at the foot of the stairs, which locks and only we would have access to ... where bikes could be stored, and which we could use as a mudroom.

oh well.

i am down about it. i don't want to move there. There's no way that once I start making Firm Money I would want to stay in that apartment, and we're not up for moving twice in 2 years. No freaking way. but i do feel so cramped. I know I'm a whiner and a baby and a brat, but I would love to get the girls their own room, and us a study, and a mud room wouldn't hurt, either.

perhaps i just need to stop going to other people's houses.

Labels: apartment, family, housing, rent

posted by Zuska @ 8:16 PM 0 comments

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