03_First House Hunting

On May 12^th we spend the day looking at different houses/condos/townhouses. There were 2 houses that caught our eyes. One was in Glenwood Drive, Haymount for $139K and the other was in Whitehall Drive, Cottonade for $133K.

The one in Glenwood needed a lot of works. The basement was flooded and the backyard looked like a jungle. The starting price for $139K was too much for this condition.

The one in Whitehall was an ongoing renovation, so everything would be new. However, the contractor still needed around 3 weeks to finish the work. The contractor had to change the carpets, kitchen counter tops, put new appliances, etc. We asked on the price if we bought it right away. The house’s realtor said it would cost $124.5K.  After doing some calculation, we realized that with $8.5K we couldn’t do the same tasks. The price for appliances alone could cost around $5K. So the price for $133K altogether was reasonable.

However, when we looked at the history of the house on Zillow, we realized that the house is a flipped house. The current seller bought it for $65K in May and now they doubled the price. My husband was not keen on flipped houses. He has knowledge on house constructions; he thought the whole renovation would not cost $68K. The price was too expensive.

So we decided not to put any offer on all the properties that we had seen. We kept looking on Zillow in case something new, or overlooked, came up.