The search for a house of my own continues!
Last Saturday, I went to an open house. This is the third house at which I looked, but the first one where there were other buyers on site. The house was listed for about $80,000.00 and described as a Handyman's Special. I don't mind putting some handy work into a house if it means getting it for cheap. However I quickly realized how special this house is.
It looked decent on the outside. Immediately upon entering, I noticed the crumbling ceiling and dangling light fixture above my head. The living room appeared to be in decent shape, but the kitchen floor definitely needed to be torn up. There was a breezeway to the garage, but the door was boarded. The garage had to be accessed through the back yard. The garage door itself was not present, but instead was a giant sheet of plywood.
The basement was a cramped space with no windows. The foundation was cinder block painted in a checkered pattern, on which someone (rightfully so) wrote THIS IS UGLY! My head brushed a pipe as my feet found the floor. The realtor pointed up to the pipes and noted the asbestos wrapping. The bulkhead to the outside was boarded off in the same way the garage was. The appliances were down here, but had I moved in, they wouldn't have stayed there.
In brief, the whole house was a patchwork of floors, walls, ceilings, and windows that needed to be replaced. I had to guess if they were asking for $80,000, it would probably take my whole $120,000 pre-approval to compete with the other buyers and maybe another $40,000 to bring the house up-to-date. This means I wouldn't be able to get this one. If there was one upside, it at least had a spacious bathroom. The realtor appreciated my search for the silver lining.
TL;DR: Went to an open house, realized the repairs made it too expensive.
