Thursday, March 15, 2012

Step 1... Look at the Potential Houses

After the wonderful weekend in Fredericksburg it was time to focus back on our house hunt!  On Tuesday we met up with our realtor and she showed us 4 houses.  If you've read the previous posts you know that 4 was actually quite a bit considering how fast houses are moving around here.  Allow me to bring you along for the ride...

House 1: An attached town home with 2 bedrooms and 1.5 baths.  Price 189,900 and it had HOA fees for being part of this small community that is about a 5 minute walk from our current apartment.  I took photos of it, but my camera died so you'll just have to "listen" about this one and the next one.
Upon walking into this house you are immediately in the living room/dining room which has nice dark hardwood floors.  The somewhat updated kitchen over looks both rooms and there was a half bath down the hall from the kitchen.  There was a tiny... tiiiiiiny, backyard space and no garage, though there was enough space to park 4 cars should we desire.  A full staircase (which is a big deal for us as we have the metal spiral type in our apartment now and dislike it!) leads you up to the 2 bedrooms that share a bathroom located in the middle of the two rooms.  Both rooms had ceiling fans and large closets and the carpet was very clean.
What we liked: It was clean, somewhat upgraded and near the dog park.
What we didn't like: It was only 300 sq. ft. larger than our current apartment, no garage and the backyard wasn't not even worthy of that name.


House 2: This house (200,000) was pretty much exactly like the first with the only differences being lighter hardwood floors, nicer appliances and a larger backyard area.
What we liked: The space was used well and we could see ourselves living there more so than the first one.  The backyard actually had some usable space and we could put grass down if we wanted.
What we didn't like: Again as with the first house it just seemed too small and it was attached so we would not be able to get a good First Time Homebuyer's Loan from our bank.

House 3: An attached metal exterior, loft-like, town home with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms for 220,000.  It had a 2 car garage with extra storage space and many up grades throughout the entire space.  You can see in the few photos (at this point I switched to my iphone) that everything was done very well in this house...

house 3 - Online Slideshow Maker

What we liked: The various rooms were huge and had really great materials used.
What we didn't like: No real yard space, kitchen layout was odd and the 2 bedrooms were on opposite floors.  Master on 3rd floor... 2nd bedroom on 1st floor.

House 4: A detached 3 bedroom 2.5 bath house for 189,000.  Jarrod and I had been spying on this one more than the rest because if it worked for us we could get a really great deal from our bank.  So while we did our best to keep an open mind for the first 3, we may have had our hearts set on this one before we even saw it because of all it's potential.  I'll allow the pictures to show you around this one too, though just like the photos we saw online before seeing it in person, they do not do this house justice...


house 4 - Online Slideshow Maker

What we liked: The potential.  There were a hand full of projects, but all ones we could handle.  3 bedrooms make the house last longer, and a half bath on the first floor is so nice.  Also we can put a fence up and the dogs would actually have grass.
What we didn't like: Some water damage in the kitchen floor.  Smaller living space, which for us is big because we spend a lot of time in the living room and kitchen.

So which one did we choose....??? :)

1 comment:

  1. I think house 4!!! It's got a lot of nice potential and the price is right! Either way!! ekkk! so excited for you guys!

    ReplyDelete