Hunting Season...

We've looked at a few houses, probably less than 10 so far. We have made one offer, lost one offer and haven't found "the one" quite yet. It seems that there is something to put into the "con" column with each place, which is to be expected. But here is the low down.

We've seriously looked at two houses. House #1 we will call Leona, House #2 we will call Barton.

Leona was quite a fixer upper, but we really liked it, and we also liked the price. We went after work one night with our real-estate agent and at first glance, it looked like we might have found a keeper. The next morning I went with my Dad to check out all the details that I would over look. Boy, was there so much more that I noticed in the light of day with an experienced person at my side. The plumbing was not up to code, the ENTIRE back yard was cement, no grass, a huge 30 year old in ground pool in the middle of the yard, gross bathroom and needed all new windows. This house pretty much looked like it was half assed by the last owner, nothing was finished and what was finished was just half-assed. There were a LOT of random things going on in there that just didn't make sense. After spending about two hours walking around the house and yard with dad, we decided to pass. Too much to do and not enough time to do it. PASS.

Barton defintely need A LOT less work. Just some small details to work out, cosmetic things and minor updates (like insulation around the bay window, finishing the deck, putting up some drywall in the dining room, etc) but it was all stuff that we could do ourselves. It just needed some TLC and appliances, we can do that. Again, we looked at it with the real-estate agent at night and went to check it out again the next morning with my dad. Dad ok'd the house, but we all had slight concerns about the neighborhood. It wasn't ideal (to say the least) but it wasn't horrible either. I think we just got over excited about finding something in our price range that didn't need to be updated to such a degree, so we put a bid on it. We offered about $10,000 less than the asking price, because it was definitely over priced for the neighborhood. That was Saturday afternoon. On Monday we find out that the selling agent had another offer that came in over the weekend. Cool, no big deal. By Wednesday we find out that there are 4 additional offers on the house and the bank is asking that everyone bring their Highest and Best offer and they will go from there. Well, after thinking about it, Justin and I just weren't as intersted in the house anymore and still thought it was pretty overpriced, so we went up about $2500 in our price and called it a day. We found out Friday evening that we didn't get the house, and I think it was more a sigh of relief that we didn't end up with a house in a neighborhood that we weren't 100% on. So in the end, it was a good thing.

We are now interested in a condo that we found. The neighborhood is perfect, close to the expressway for me (I work in Downtown Detroit, and we are looking in the Livonia/Plymouth/Canton area), its got a neighborhood/suburban feel but is also close to shopping, our families, etc. The condo is on the higher end of our price range, which sucks, especially with association fees, but it only needs some new carpet, paint and a good scrub down. It's a little smaller then what we initially wanted, but we could deal with that. We don't plan on having kids for a good 5 years or so, so we could upgrade when needed and still get our moneys worth out of it and get our investment back (hopefully). It's even big enough to raise the first kid in if we needed to. So right now we are just waiting to hear about what offers/info the sellers agent has for this condo. I would really like to put an offer in on it soon, so hopefully we'll get some good news tomorrow.

That's all I really have right now. If I have some updates tomorrow I will definitely post them.

Here's hoping!