Saturday, April 14, 2007

Pining For The Fjords

The Mrs. and I have been doing some house shopping. From Condos to Ranch Homes to Split Levels to Cape Cods. We've given just about everything in our price range a once over. It's interesting what you can learn about a person by going through their house. A process which includes opening refridgerators, closets, and cabinets.

We've found a house we like. Two of them actually. Houses that we'll hope to re-visit and perhaps make an offer on by the end of next week. All-in-all we visited almost 20 houses over the course of two days.

My favorite house was the one with a dead bird in it. It was a vacated condo in a housing community. In the corner of the empty living room was the bird. It's neck contorted. Probably from flying into the window it lay beneath. And it was most certainly dead.

Our realtor mentioned that we could negotiate the bird in our contract if we made an offer. If we didn't and the bird stayed, I imagined it would go something like the following.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck on the house hunting and be prepared. Here are two good sites: Roger Schlesinger, mortgage minute and www.bobbruss.com , read the articles.
Not sure of your market and going out on a limb to assume you are in a buyers markets. Think about being aggressive in your offers and protect yourself. Check this article by Bruss, "Home buyers: 5 costly mistakes to avoid". A quick thought on condo's given that the biggest gripe by condo owners is noise, noise, noise. Ask to see the minutes of condo association meetings to see what issues are being discussed. Look at the % of owners to renters in the condo's, your bank certainly will. I forget the group that Bruss suggests for home inspections, use them. Try to find one without getting a suggestion from a broker.
Good luck, you are in a very good position as a strong buyer in a weak market.

sara* said...

Congrats! That's really exciting!

We're condo dwellers, but we had little choice (having to live within Boston city limits). We were lucky enough to find a small, quiet, almost entirely owner occupied association. It's nice to not worry about shoveling/plowing, landscaping, and some of the utilities. It's made a huge difference.

That said, we're ready for a house in the suburbs.