Still Waiting

Well, as most of you have figured out by now, we are not in our dream fixer house. And unfortunately for us, that isn't going to change any time soon. The house is back on the market, and we are once again looking for the perfect home to rehab. It just got to be too much of a hassle turning the other cheek to those darn sellers, and so we had to cancel the contract. Although I don't believe they've changed agents and the house is still not being truthfully represented as an "as-is short sale", they are still trying to make that 11th hour sale before the lender forecloses on them. At which point it will probably go back on the market with a few improvements and a slightly higher price tag. Rather than wait, we've moved on in our search and identified a few likely prospects. Some with more potential than others, but all within our price range and and target area. First on our list is a very rough diamond indeed:

This house is 3500+ square feet AND located in a historic district, with old-time charm and only a few houses from the Eccles Mansion. It's also at the top of our price range ($130k)) and needs extensive work, which could make it a lot to bite off. The current owner is an architect in charge of rehabbing a number of historic downtown homes, and has already done quite a bit of work on this one. We are submitting an offer, but are hesitant to commit to loving this house yet as it may prove more than we can tackle. Also the style is very conflicted Victorian/bungalow, it was built in 1896 but had major remodeling c. 1920. Again, lots of work to do before we'd see improvement. R is very nervous about owning/rehabbing a home this large in an area where you have to get permission for any exterior work. Some smaller, less expensive homes we're looking into:

This house built c. 1899 is only .3 miles from the previous house, and has a 5th of an acre lot. We love the lines of the house and the original windows & FP, but the street behind the house is a main thoroughfare with lots of businesses. We do worry about the noise and location with this one, although it's turn-key condition and $90k price tag might make up for it.

This one is in between the historic districts, built in 1878 and has a pretty nice neighborhood. It obviously needs some gussying up externally, still sturdy and large enough for us. It is at the small end at 1650 sq. ft., but fairly inexpensive for the up and coming area ($105k). One thing to note: none of these new prospects have garages or carports, so we'd either have to be ok with parking outdoors all the time, or have enough lot and budget left to build our own garage.