So this weekend was busy, fun, and interesting. We have been looking at this house a few blocks from here. It's a rent-to-own, which is pretty much what we're looking for. We don't want to take out a home loan yet, but we want to start building equity. Anyway, this house is a perfect first flip. It was funny: the first thing we thought when we saw it was, "Hey, it looks like my Mom's house!" Then, when we walked in, we noticed that it had the same layout on the main floor. So we called it Mim's "mini-me" house.
The house is in a good neighborhood, just off the main road we live near. It's close enough that we're still super close to the stores and restaurants and such, but far enough that you can't hear the traffic on that road. It's blue with stony-looking brick accents on the outside and has a reddish-brown fence for the backyard. It has three bedrooms and one bathroom, but hookups in the unfinished basement for another bathroom. It is in really good shape, too. We talked to the owner today and filled out an application and made him an offer, which he took. We talked him down $100 from what he wanted for rent, and we talked him into cutting the security deposit in half! It will basically be a lease for a year with a portion of the rent going toward a down payment on the house, and at the end of the year we have the option to buy, and we are pretty sure we are going to buy it, assuming we can get the loan in a year.
Upstairs there is a wall between the living room and the kitchen that we want to knock out and build a nice island there instead. The way into the backyard is on the side of the house, with this little deck that really looks kinda silly, and doesn't flow. So we're thinking we'd like to put a double door in the dining room leading out to a deck we want to build. Also, we want to finish the basement and add that second bathroom. We figure we'll live in the house for about three years total, doing one project at a time to update and renovate, and sell for a profit. Then we can move to another home and do the same thing. Eventually, we would like to build up enough profit that we could buy a house to live in and buy another to flip, so we could stop moving. We'll see.
We had a three day weekend, and on Friday there were only five samples to test, so I'm betting tomorrow there will be quite a few and I will be there a long long time. Oh well. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to look at my foot and hopefully we can figure out why it's been hurting and swelling.
Scott and I had Mim up this weekend, too. She came up Sunday evening, and we took her to see the house, and we had steaks on the grill for dinner, and we watched TV and talked and had a lot of fun. Then today we all went to look at a different house (for comparison purposes) and we went shopping a little bit. We watched some Stargate and did pedicures and we all slept in today, which was nice. I don't mind getting up so early as much, since it's straightened out my sleep schedule and now I have more energy and don't feel tired during the day as much.
Tomorrow I will go back in to work. That will make three straight weeks of not working a full workweek, so next week will feel so long in comparison! That's ok, I like my job.
I can't believe we're getting a house. I feel like I'm a grownup all of a sudden...it's weird.
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