Fill-in-the-blanks

Been busy- updates from the last month will be back-dated and squeezed in as I get the chance.

We now have hot water, a working bathroom (toilet and sink) and a temporary but working shower. The kitchen consists of a stove, a microwave, and a toaster oven, with a freezer and my apartment-sized portable fridge acting as a stand-in till I find a suitable replacement.

Today at approximately 4:20pm the new toilet was christened by the ceremonial First Poo.

2500 Armstrong Drive

A curious looking home showed up on the market just a few blocks from my rental. A flat-roofed home built in 1969 with very distinct architecture. Huge on the inside- nearly 1,800 sqft. Three bedrooms, two bath, two fireplaces, a large three-level deck, and a basement "suite" complete with built in wet bar. And so cheap I was convinced not only that someone must have died in the property, but they didn't bother to remove the body.

The place had been on the market for well over a year- originally listed as a bank repo for $100,000. It sat with no buyers for a long time before it was pulled back off the market. Why, I'm still not sure at this point, but it then re-appeared at a drastically-reduced price.

I put the bid in with very little hesitation, and minimal inspections to push the sale through as fast as possible. And when the ink was dry, this place was mine for just about $54,000. On October 25th, 2008 the sale was official.

Now the fun begins.

Buy homes for only pennies on the dollar! Call now!

The actual house-hunting began about six months ago. An economic crisis, and a crumbling housing market had driven property values into the dirt. In some cases quite brutally- houses were stomped and then the market insulted their mothers.

Now, I don't make that much money. I just eeked a few dollars past $25,000 this year. I got a few loan estimates, and once I confirmed that I could indeed buy for the same or less than what I spend monthly on a rental, and with the prices this low I knew I had to do whatever was necessary to buy into the market.

The most I could afford was maybe about $75,000, so I started crawling through the listings looking for deals. And I did find quite a few in my price range, but the places were either utterly destroyed beyond my ability to repair or about a block outside of Deliverance.

I put a few bids in along the way. One property in Fredericksburg caught my eye, but the amount of work involved bringing it back to habitable was ridiculous. It was a very nice house on 2.7 acres, beautiful landscaping, and from the outside the perfect home. The inside, however, was a horror-show- the place would have literally required the property to be gutted to the bare stud wall, and the floor taken down to the dirt and rebuilt. The bank refused to budge on the price, though, and were asking far too much for the land alone, so that one was out.

A property in Shreve was close to a buy... also needed lots of work, but that one was called off after the inspection discovered some nearly-irrepairable foundation damage. To properly fix would cost nearly as much as the house itself. Strike 2.

Another wonderful location showed up in Burbank for about $65,000- this one a HUD home. A turn-of-the-century farmhouse on a little over 5 acres with a big barn and storage sheds. Secluded, beautiful chunk of land on top of a hill, completely hidden from view by trees, and overlooking a big ol' lake. Someone else got in an earlier bid, which went through.

The next property was in Wooster- downtown near the "Historic Row" of restored homes from the late 1800 to early 1900s. This was a lot of home- 5 bedroom Victorian, grand room, fireplace, huge professional kitchen, and a food-prep clean-room with two walk-in freezers in the basement. It was way over what I could reasonably afford at about $90,000. I'd have needed many people paying rent, but it was worth a shot. An earlier bid was also put in and accepted.

Then I find the winner....

The intro...

This Blog will be a collection of thoughts and photos from a recent home purchase, and a convenient place to point the many friends, relatives, and co-workers who've been inquiring about my progress turning a bank-reposessed shell into a home.

This will be updated regularly as repairs continue, and will serve as a kind of visual record of the progress over the next year or more.

Now I suppose I could have gone off and made my own web page, but... well... I'm busy! Blogger will have to do!

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!