Home searching continues

I have been look at some homes for the past few weekends.  Going as well as can be expected I guess.  See some features I like about one home, see other features I don’t like, see things in a different home that I wish was on the first home, wishing I could mix and match.  Real estate agent is cool, so that makes things easier I suppose.  Its just a daunting task overall.  Its a heck of a lot of money that will be going towards the purchase, so what factors are you supposed to consider when doing so.  If they say that getting the perfect home is impossible, then where do you draw the lines and where do you give up on what you like.  Its so hard deciding what is most important sometimes.

Just this last weekend, the first home visited was a corner lot next to a pretty big street.  I didn’t really like that.  However, the inside was pretty nice.  I think previous people got kicked out and its bank owned now.  But, before doing so they totally upgraded some things like the kitchen, the backyard was pretty large, and the overall layout seemed okay.  The noise from the road was not that loud, but do I really want to be that close to it?  What if I get a dog and the dog somehow gets out?

And then you have the totally different conditions and prices of the homes.  We went to a house in Mission Viejo, and it was a short sale.  It was not in bad condition, but not great either.  Work definitely needed to be done, but its not like you couldn’t live in it.  They listed it for 420k.  Who knows if the bank will accept that, but that’s what it was.  I kind of liked how it looked, not bad.  The neighborhood and location was tons better than the one in Laguna Hills.  We left and as we were driving, I saw a for sale sign on another house.  It looked really bad, but I just asked if we could go in and the agent made some calls and we got in.  It happened to be, literally, the exact same house as the one we just left, but this one was in horrific condition.  Apparently the people, I’d guess, wanted revenge or had ill will towards the bank for kicking them out and it showed.  Mirrors were gone.  Windows were literally taken out from the back, not just the glass but the whole frames as well so that it was just boarded with wood.  The pool in the back was vinyl I think and ripped so you could just see the dirt below the pool lining.  Kitchen cabinets were awful, and the counter was probably the original as it was exactly like those green vinyl type topped tables you see in really old diners.  Bathtubs and showers were cracked.  Writing and graffiti on the walls.  Who knows about all the pipes and wiring and stuff.  And the driveway was literally just dirt and sand.  There was no price on the house because it wasn’t listed yet, but the agent suspects it will be in the mid 300s.  Hmmmm, fix it up?  LOL.  While leaving there we saw an open house sign in a close by neighborhood and so stopped by.  Guess what?  It again, coincidentally, was the exact same model home.  However, this house was totally and completely upgraded so that it was super nice.  Hardwood floors, granite counters, new cabinets, new shelving in the garage, redone bathrooms, all the corners to every wall were rounded, a skylight was added, etc, etc.  They really did a lot.  And it made me imagine how the previous home could totally be fixed up!  However, they were listing this house for 550k.  Are you crazy!!  My real estate agent was like, they are not going to get that price.  120k more than the short sale for the same house?  Upgrades are nice, but not that nice!  If I bought that piece of crap house for 350k, I guarantee if I wanted to fix it up to look exactly the same it will not be 200k!  Do people still think we are in a seller’s market???

Anyway, the search continues and if I find anything interesting to write about I will.  We’ll see what happens!