...And the Hunt Begins Again

Found this in a basement of a house we looked at.
May it forever haunt your dreams.

Welcome back, America.

The Houghs have been living in central Michigan for about a year and a half now, but regardless of the fact that we're both holding down well-paying jobs and are in close proximity to all sides of our family, we still aren't feeling 100% settled up here.

And that's because we're still living in a f***ing Rental.

Not a bad floor plan - if not a little small - and
the appliances were pretty old.

While this little house of ours is getting us by - there's plenty of storage space for all our crap, the neighborhood's great, we're centrally located in town to just about everything you could ask for - it still isn't quite 'home.'


The house we've been renting since June of 2015 is small, it's old, and the yard looks like a hobo without his shirt on.  We have my Granny's piano in our dining room, my library has been sitting in a mountain of cardboard boxes atop steel shelving in the basement (undisplayed), and I have stacks of swords everywhere because there's no real place to display them properly.

Long story short, Kris and I are ready to be home-owners again.

I know I've mentioned this before, but we were fortunate enough to make a decent chunk of change off the sale of our Majorama House in Orlando.  To date, that money has been sitting safely in our local Credit Union, biding its time until we can use it to throw down a down payment on our next house.  This next house of ours, dear readers, shall hopefully be the last house Kris and I ever purchase, and I'm aiming to die in it as an old man.

Checking out a built-in library in a property

Preferably in front of the fireplace, with a sword across my lap and a Who album on the turntable.

Anyway.

Now that the Holiday juggernaut has come and gone, and things have once again fallen back into a familiar grind - Kris and I are back at work, the kids are back in school - we've decided to start actively looking for a new place to live.

Our current lease is up in June, so while we're entering the market at a less-than-opportune time (not a lot of inventory available in the dead of winter, so it's definitely a Seller's Market up here in Midland), Kris and I are hoping we can catch something within the next few months and be able to move out before having to extend our lease any.

Checking out a not-so-nice deck of a house that could have worked,
had the owners actually bothered to take care of it these last couple decades. . .

After asking around, Kris and I were led to a realtor that works through the same real estate company we use as our landlord's rental agent.  This guy, Rick (at left), is known for being straight-forward and honest with houses, which Kris and I prefer.  We wanted someone with experience who won't fluff a place up if he doesn't think it's worth it, and fortunately that's not something we have to worry about with him.

After being approved through a lender, we were ready to start viewing available properties. . . and I remembered how much I loathe house-hunting.  Of the five we saw over the course of the last week or so, some were nice, others were comically bad, and some could have worked if only one or two things had been different regarding the floor plan.  Neither of us want to settle, considering we're betting on this next house to be the last we ever own.

I'll use this particular house on Mason St. as an example.  This old Dow-designed house was in our price range, in a desirable neighborhood, with some great landscaping, and three living rooms. . .

. . . a built-in library, with a nice staircase, room for a piano, and an indoor opening that looked down into the kitchen. . .

Slate floors, plenty of retro charm. . .

. . . BUT antiquated windows that would all have to be replaced (they were from the '60s or '70s.)  And replacing an entire house's windows is not cheap, folks.

 Nor is replacing an entire house-worth of peeling wallpaper.  Had this house been about $100,000 less, Kris and I would have pounced on it, but, sadly, we had to pass on it.  This sort of 'on one hand this, but on the other hand, this' thing is starting to get really, really old, and we've only been looking for a week or so.  Can't imagine how many more white hairs I'm going to start sprouting if we're going to be at this for a few months. . .

Rick and Kris, inspecting another property's living room windows. . .

Kris and I have realized we need at least three bedrooms and two bathrooms in our next house (well, four bedrooms or three bedrooms and an office space for Kris, to be exact.)  We'd also need a Living Room (for the couches, TV, etc.) as well as a Family Room (for a fireplace, our library, the bar stuff, etc.)  A two-car garage, a large basement (to house our storage, our exercise equipment, drum set, girls' playroom etc.), and a shed.  In addition, we'd like to be on this side of town, near the kids' schools and where the neighborhoods are a little quieter.

Retro '70s basement, anyone?

Maybe that's frivolous, maybe that's being too picky. . . but, damn it, you know what?  I'm pushing 40, and I deserve this crap in my life, already.

We'll keep you posted with how this whole disaster of a situation unfolds. . .

- Brian

Housin'

The Living Room

What's up, Cyberspace.

As you may recall, a couple weeks ago we went out looking at houses with our real estate agent, Steve.  Of all the houses we've seen since that first outing, one stood out from the rest - if you'll recall, from an earlier post, it was House #2.

This house, while lacking the fourth bedroom we wanted, is just about perfect.  It has a large, fenced-in yard with an automated sprinkler system already in place and a hurricane-proof shed FULL of tools and lawn supplies being left behind.  There's ten fruit trees in the back yard as well, with a side yard large enough to accommodate our swimming pool, and a spacious back patio with adjustable vinyl windows and retractable blinds.

Check it:

The Backyard

I guess I'm going to have to learn how to take care of all these damn fruit trees. . .

Patio (terrible picture, I know - I'll replace it as soon as possible)

In fact, this house had been so well-taken care of, and had so many upgrades done to it recently, that there were nearly a dozen cash offers on it from investors, banks, and other rich folk looking to turn it into a cash-cow rental unit.  The asking price for the house was $128,000, and most of the cash offers on it were in excess of $130,000.  Unfortunately, despite our excellent credit and spotless records (believe it or not, mine is actually better than Kris', and we're both around the 800 mark), we poor Houghs could only muster a loan offer for $126,500 once the comp appraisals came back.

Chances of us getting the house were indeed slim.

. . . but that's when our kids came in.

Thanks, Cannonball.

While seeing the house for the first time, the sellers - a lovely elderly couple who were all-around, genuine nice people - took a shine to our offspring (don't ask me why, they were behaving like total basket-cases that day), and later expressed interest in selling their home to the "nice couple with the cute kids."

That's right.  The Houghs.  Screw you, rich people:  behold the almighty power of the fruit of my loins.

Despite the big banks and investors trying to out-bid on the property, we prevailed and secured the seller's interest.  All this regardless of the fact that,

Living Room (Formal Dining Room in the back)

In your face, banks - we're closing on May 31st!

We hadn't expected the sellers to sell us the house, seeing how we were offering them much less than the other interested buyers, so when we received the good news we were floored.  Steve scheduled a time when the inspectors could come by and check the place out, which only gave us more good news - everything was in great - if not eerily perfect - shape, and the sellers were very happy to be handing it over to us.

As we took a second look at the place, we were even more excited about getting the house.  Like I said in an earlier post, the roof has just been done, a new hurricane-proof garage door (which runs silent as the grave, might I add) has been recently installed, and there are gothic-looking bars over all the windows (the sellers used to vacation in New York for months on end, and secured the house like Fort Knox whenever they left - a huge plus for me, personally).

The Kitchen

The nook itself might be a bit on the squished side, though (the patio is in the back beyond the sliding doors)

This room shall become the Study

I wasn't about to start complaining about the wall-to-wall closet space in my Study - I'm a hoarder, so it'll definitely help.

This will be the girls' bedroom. . .

Same size as the room they have now, but we're thinking about getting them bunk beds to conserve space. . .

The Master Bedroom - large enough to fit all of our bedroom furniture, plus Kris' Mega Desk (that window in the back opens up to the screened-in patio out back)

Living Room and Dining Room (Kitchen in the back through the doorway)

As the Houghs have no use for such a thing as a Formal Dining Room, we're going to convert it into a Playroom for the girls. . . 'cause we're classy.

More of the Living Room (Master Bedroom there to the right, the lit-up room is the girls' bathroom, with the Hallway also leading to the girls' bedroom, the Study, a few closets, and the Garage)

So, as we start the mountain of paperwork that is involved with transferring over the title, scheduling hordes of inspections, filing insurance and comp claims/estimaets/what-have-you, etc. etc., we'll also be packing like crazy.

The Germ Factory

Rest assured, this will probably be the craziest month we've had in years.  My students are bouncing off the walls, seeing how the dreaded FCAT has come and gone, and they're all gunning for June 8th (when we get out for the summer).  This means that while lesson planning has gotten a lot easier (seeing how kids are requiring more hands-on work to keep them focused), I'm more burnt-out at the end of the day.  To make matters worse, Kris has had to take the last week and half off of work in order to stay home with two sick kids (who, of course, are sick on alternating days).


Good times.

Let the epic countdown towards the end of the school year and the new house begin.  We're up to the hilt in peril and stress, but couldn't be more excited about all our good fortune.

Stay tuned, folks!

- Brian