Condo hunt update
Aug. 14th, 2007 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseSome slightly better news on the home-hunting front: We finally found a place that Brian doesn't totally hate! Okay, so actually he didn't hate most of the places we looked at (except a few that really deserved it). So maybe "a place where Brian actually wants to live" would be better. And we haven't really disagreed on that many - the biggest difference of opinion was over the gorgeous-but-tiny place with the amazing view. (I would've been okay with the lack of space; I lived in dorm rooms for several years so I wouldn't have minded in exchange for niceness + stunning view. But he's lived in houses for almost all his life, so he needs to have room to spread out. So we didn't make an offer, despite the fact that it was really an awesome deal.) Most of the rest have had too many problems for either of us to really be interested.
The newly-marketed place is in a complex that I've been consistently impressed with - the units aren't large, but the management looks like it knows what it's doing (well-landscaped, recently painted, newish-looking roof, well-maintained roads, no current assessments). We've looked at a couple of other units in the complex and the real problems have been layout-wise - most of them didn't have very many windows, so there was almost no light coming in, and the second bedroom in a lot of them was a really strange shape - very long and narrow with no real room for our home theater.
This unit's actually got a lot of potential, though. There still aren't quite as many windows as I'd prefer, but it's a top-floor unit so the living room does have a pretty darn nice view (not quite as stunning as the tiny place, but still nice) and gets a fair amount of light. The appliances are older (which likely contributes to the higher-than-average electrical usage), but the place itself has been redone really quite nicely. I especially liked the tile countertops in the kitchen and bathroom (which has actual counter space! Yes!) and the linoleum. In addition, the current owner's an artist, so the walls and carpet and linoleum are all done in unusual but coordinating colors, which really adds a lot of visual interest to the space. And the layout is much better - the master bedroom has been turned into a really nice den area, which we should be able to fit our theater into. And the second bedroom is more square than rectangular - small, but cozy, and also with a really cool-looking paint job. The closets are all fairly large, and there's a storage area next to the place for things like skis and whatnot.
The only real obstacle is likely going to be the asking price. The owner is starting out asking $162K, which is a lot higher than we're looking for and really about $17K more than we'd be willing to pay for the place. (While we like a lot of things about it, replacing the appliances won't be cheap and while the layout is better, it still has the sort of cramped-in apartment feel that the other units do.) Fortunately, we have some bargaining room; appliances aside, several other units in the complex have been on the market for months and haven't sold. (This will definitely merit a close look at the management, but I'd guess it's mostly the housing slump combined with the fact that most of them needed a lot of refurbishing.) And then there is (of course) the nationwide slump to consider. This may be a problem, though - according to the disclosure, the owner's only had the place for two and a half years. So if she bought it during the boom, there's a chance that she won't be able to sell it for less, simply because she couldn't afford the loss. So we'll see how it goes.
The newly-marketed place is in a complex that I've been consistently impressed with - the units aren't large, but the management looks like it knows what it's doing (well-landscaped, recently painted, newish-looking roof, well-maintained roads, no current assessments). We've looked at a couple of other units in the complex and the real problems have been layout-wise - most of them didn't have very many windows, so there was almost no light coming in, and the second bedroom in a lot of them was a really strange shape - very long and narrow with no real room for our home theater.
This unit's actually got a lot of potential, though. There still aren't quite as many windows as I'd prefer, but it's a top-floor unit so the living room does have a pretty darn nice view (not quite as stunning as the tiny place, but still nice) and gets a fair amount of light. The appliances are older (which likely contributes to the higher-than-average electrical usage), but the place itself has been redone really quite nicely. I especially liked the tile countertops in the kitchen and bathroom (which has actual counter space! Yes!) and the linoleum. In addition, the current owner's an artist, so the walls and carpet and linoleum are all done in unusual but coordinating colors, which really adds a lot of visual interest to the space. And the layout is much better - the master bedroom has been turned into a really nice den area, which we should be able to fit our theater into. And the second bedroom is more square than rectangular - small, but cozy, and also with a really cool-looking paint job. The closets are all fairly large, and there's a storage area next to the place for things like skis and whatnot.
The only real obstacle is likely going to be the asking price. The owner is starting out asking $162K, which is a lot higher than we're looking for and really about $17K more than we'd be willing to pay for the place. (While we like a lot of things about it, replacing the appliances won't be cheap and while the layout is better, it still has the sort of cramped-in apartment feel that the other units do.) Fortunately, we have some bargaining room; appliances aside, several other units in the complex have been on the market for months and haven't sold. (This will definitely merit a close look at the management, but I'd guess it's mostly the housing slump combined with the fact that most of them needed a lot of refurbishing.) And then there is (of course) the nationwide slump to consider. This may be a problem, though - according to the disclosure, the owner's only had the place for two and a half years. So if she bought it during the boom, there's a chance that she won't be able to sell it for less, simply because she couldn't afford the loss. So we'll see how it goes.
