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Busted Bungalow
Jan. 28th, 2019 12:30 pmWe headed down to Cleburne (about an hour from us, but only 30 minutes from work) on Saturday to check out a house that had caught my eye. It was a pretty cute little vintage Craftsman that looked a little rough, but from the photos it seemed like it would be redeemable with a little elbow grease. I'd already been pinning ideas on how to fix the place up, and getting a little excited because the place is pretty cheap (under $60k).
Then, we drove up to it.
Guys, there are giant holes in the roof. A sign on the door said "careful going in, there's no floor right by the entrance."
Wut.
These people must be nuts asking $60k for it. There was a fully update house, literally across the street from it (the busted house is at 311, the one that sold at 312), that just went for $75k. When I looked back at the purchase history of the house, the current owners picked it up for around $12K back in 2012, but they haven't done anything to fix it up since then (you can see all the same roof holes and rotten eaves in the google earth street view on the 2013 drive-by), so whatever was rotten then is more rotten now, and the roof is literally sagging under the weight of the dormer. It's such as shame, because it really could be a gem if it was in the hands of someone that loved it, instead of someone that leaves it to rot for 7 years.
(ETA: Looking at the photos again, they must have photoshopped the hole out of the roof, because there is an angle where you should very clearly be able to see it. Not cool, sneaky seller.)
Honestly, I would probably give it some very serious consideration if it were down around $30-35k. I'm fairly confident in my carpentry skills, and what I can't do myself, like the roof, I have great guys on call that can. But no one in their right mind is going to pay nearly full-price for a house they're going to have to dump at least $20K worth of work in, because they won't be getting that money back for at least a decade.
Crazy cakes.
Sunday we had the house to ourselves, so we finally managed to get some real cleaning done. It was almost a spring cleaning, since we managed to go through and shred some outdated documents and pack up some books that were taking up precious space (life in 120 square feet is always tight), but the rest of the family got home sooner than expected, so we had to quit early. Still, it felt good to get so much done.
Then, we drove up to it.
Guys, there are giant holes in the roof. A sign on the door said "careful going in, there's no floor right by the entrance."
Wut.
These people must be nuts asking $60k for it. There was a fully update house, literally across the street from it (the busted house is at 311, the one that sold at 312), that just went for $75k. When I looked back at the purchase history of the house, the current owners picked it up for around $12K back in 2012, but they haven't done anything to fix it up since then (you can see all the same roof holes and rotten eaves in the google earth street view on the 2013 drive-by), so whatever was rotten then is more rotten now, and the roof is literally sagging under the weight of the dormer. It's such as shame, because it really could be a gem if it was in the hands of someone that loved it, instead of someone that leaves it to rot for 7 years.
(ETA: Looking at the photos again, they must have photoshopped the hole out of the roof, because there is an angle where you should very clearly be able to see it. Not cool, sneaky seller.)
Honestly, I would probably give it some very serious consideration if it were down around $30-35k. I'm fairly confident in my carpentry skills, and what I can't do myself, like the roof, I have great guys on call that can. But no one in their right mind is going to pay nearly full-price for a house they're going to have to dump at least $20K worth of work in, because they won't be getting that money back for at least a decade.
Crazy cakes.
Sunday we had the house to ourselves, so we finally managed to get some real cleaning done. It was almost a spring cleaning, since we managed to go through and shred some outdated documents and pack up some books that were taking up precious space (life in 120 square feet is always tight), but the rest of the family got home sooner than expected, so we had to quit early. Still, it felt good to get so much done.
