House Hunting!

Today we began our journey to find a house! We are officially on the hunt for an old Victorian house with land. That is most of the reason we moved to this area. We lined up two different houses today out in the country (on the same road, only 2 miles from each other) and left the boys with a babysitter so that we could focus.

They are both in the Youngstown/Porter/Ransomville area of NW New York, about 40 minutes from where we live now. The distance is important to us because we would love for Nick to be able to keep his awesome job (that he just got another raise at!).

This is the first house we viewed in Youngstown:

• $119,000
• 1952 sqft
• Built in 1895
• 0.77 acres
• 4 bed 2 bath

The outside was nice. There was a detached 1 car garage, as well as a small shed. There was an above ground pool with a deck, and a small pond. Inside was more disappointing. It didn't look taken care of very well. The floors were all covered with cheap looking wood and vinyl laminate with hardwood in only 3 of the bedrooms. Almost every wall was covered with painted over wallpaper, or very thick texture. The basement was disgusting. You had to stoop over to walk thru it, and there were cobwebs hanging everywhere like garland. The electric boxes looked ancient and had some exposed wires.

The next house was 2 miles east in Ransomville:

• $109,000
• 2024 sqft
• Built in 1830
• 1.2 acres
• 4 bed 2 bath
• Currently a 2 family home

I know it's hard to tell what is what from the pictures. Since it is a 2 family home, there are 2 kitchens so that would obviously need to be converted. One of the realtors with us is actually a contractor as well, so he was able to give us a lot of ideas and tips for what we could do with the space. The basement in this house was very old feeling, but much more clean and tidy. The boiler and water heater looked to be in good shape. It had a 2 car detached garage and a walkout basement.

We actually much preferred the second house. The inside kind of looks like a hot mess, but we are looking for an old house with lots of history, in the country, with good bones. We want to customize it and fix it up how WE want it since this will be the house we spend the rest of our lives in. We have a lot of negotiating power because of the work that it needs, and the fact that it has been on the market for over 6 months.

We are mulling over everything and heavily weighing our options. We may go see the second house again next weekend for a closer look at certain things. Meanwhile I am checking for new listings every day! Wish us luck.