House Hunting: Small Town Living

Ok...where to start with this one? This was our first foray south of the city, to the town of Belmont. We were able to find out a fair amount of information going into this one, which was good. This was the first one we were looking at that actually had people currently living in it. The man bought it before he was married, and rented out one of the rooms. Then, he got married and had a baby...and the wife was pushing to update the carpet, and do some general "updating". But like a man, he wasn't too interested in changing his house haha. So, she decided it was time to move, and get a place of their own.

The Facts:

• Age: Older (around 80/90 yrs)
• Home size: 1.5 storeys (about 1400 sq ft)
• Prop. size: .11 acres
• Bedrooms: 4
• Bathrooms: 1
• Other: Sewer & Municipal water

The Pros:

• On sewer system (which is a pro for me and my "city girl-ness" (yes that's a word) but Jason doesn't care either way)
• Has a new roof (only 4yrs old), and some newer windows
• A nice back yard (one the ugly ass above ground pool is removed) with nice stone patio (picture a bistro table and some drinks, ah yes.)
• Had an enclosed foyer - enough for a bench and some storage

The Cons:

• Did not age well (floors, stairs, pretty much everything not level - even on the main)
• The supporting beams in the basement were the original 2x6's!!! (YIKES) (and many of them were rotting)
• TERRIBLE layout, had to step up into the kitchen & master bedroom
• Small room sizes (the specs on MLS were sooooo not right.)
• There was only about 3 internal walls - all of which were supporting - so we wouldn't even have been able to tear down walls to give us more space. (there wasn't even anyway to rearrange or shuffle the floor plan)
• There was too much work to be done just the get the house up to scratch, and there really wasn't anywhere to go from there
• Jason noticed some obvious code violations, ie: the stack about 1ft away from one of the bedroom windows :S

Ok, so, I think it's pretty obvious that this was a big resounding "NO"! Mix in the fact that the real estate agent was nutso, and trying to sell another property more than this one, we just knew it wasn't the one. It was however a bit of a turning point in our house hunting. This was the first property Jason came through with me, which finally got him more in the mood.  He started to voice his opinion, which makes looking at this place worth it in my eyes.

   The plus side of this viewing, was that after...we went on a date! Woohoo! We saw 50/50, it's great, we both recommend it!