Life has been pretty good to us lately. We did end up putting an offer on a house. We decided the 10-acre place would be too complicated and most banks aren’t willing to finance a mobile without a huge down deposit. This whole buying a house thing is complicated. We’ve been looking for some time now, but are feeling more motivated now because interest rates are so low. But even still, in our price range in the area we’re looking, I don’t think that perfect place will ever show up. The one we’ve put an offer on has a lot of great things going for it though.
The land is smaller than we were originally thinking, but we’ve come to discover that in our price range most of the bigger ones are way further out, or have mobiles or very small/rundown houses on them. This one is in a really nice neighbourhood, and backs onto a protected park, so even though the land is “only” 1.4 acres (which is still plenty big, I know), it also has a big undeveloped park literally adjoined to the backyard. There are developed trails and an off-leash dog park nearby too. So really we could clear and develop our entire property and there would still be lots of trees and forest for the kids to play in. Not saying we would do that, but it does mean that the entire thing is usable without losing the forest and trees that I love so much. The picture above is looking out onto the backyard. All of those trees are part of the land. It goes back probably a good 100 feet or more and then hits the park land. The back is south facing, so I might have the same gardening problems I have where we are now (shaded by big trees, sap and pine needles falling into it) if we don’t clear any of the trees, but there are a few spots that have some potential.
It’s a nice house with good structure, but definitely a bit of a fixer upper. Yet, we could live there for years without doing any work on it and it would suit us just fine. The outside is in need of a good power wash and some paint or stain, plus some landscaping (which I think would be fun, I love that it’s not landscaped much yet!). The master bathroom is pink (fixtures and all), and the lighting throughout the house is terrible, but it has some really cool features too. Like a neat little breakfast nook looking out over the side yard and front deck. It needs to be reupholstered, but is way more in keeping with how we tend to eat anyway.
The bedrooms are pretty neat too. There are three upstairs. One is the master, which has a little seating area and it’s own bathroom. One Kris will use for an office and possibly we’ll also put my scrapbooking and sewing stuff in that room as well (though kid’s arts and crafts stuff I’d like downstairs), and the other would be the girls’ room eventually. It’s plenty big enough for two twin beds or bunk beds (it has two twin beds in it right now), and then also has a little den coming off of it that could be a play area, reading nook, or pretty much anything else they wanted.
Anyway, there’s the tour of our latest house love. We’re in limbo right now, because the owner of the house doesn’t seem willing to bring his price down at all. He states it’s worth more than what he’s asking and we just happen to be buying at a low point in the market. Which seems obvious to me, that’s one of the reasons why we’re buying right now. 
Regardless, we’ll see if anything comes of it. I like to have the houses we look at and really like posted anyway so I can look back on them one day!
In other news, I have another book giveaway posted on my Usborne site and my sister-in-law is hosting a giveaway for fans on her Dragon’s Treasure site, so please pop over and check them both out!
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I LOVE the breakfast nook! That’s something I always want…a cozy bay window with a bench for reading or whatever too!
Good luck
Yeah I’ve always wanted one too! I was thinking we could add some beanbag chairs or something in the little den in the girls’ room as a reading corner for them too when they’re a bit older. Lots of potential!
Good luck! It looks and sounds great!
It may be worth more to him but market value is just that and right now it happens to be lower than he’d probably like it to be. He could always wait to sell it at a different time.
I feel the same way. He is choosing to sell in this market, just like we’re choosing to buy in this market. There may be other reasons on his end and it may not have been entirely under his control, but the market is the market. Apparently he had it appraised a year ago at over $100k more than what he’s asking, which is good for us if we do get it.
But it is definitely understandable why he’s resistant.