Let's take a serious look at this. How much work exactly are we willing to put into making the next house what we want it to be? There's fixer upper, and then there's what we asked our incredibly patient realtor to go preview for us this afternoon. There's a short sale listed that has only one exterior photograph, and nothing else. No details to speak of, either. Its asking price is well under our budget, which is saying something in this crazy market we're trying to navigate. Unfortunately, as she explained in a call this evening, the inside of the house was so awful, she couldn't bring herself to step through the door. There was garbage and filth everywhere, and her quick glance and exit brought up another topic we had never considered: drugs. While the paraphernalia she noticed was legal, she pointed out that especially in a place like this, buyers would have to run a test to find out whether the home was ever used as a meth lab. If it's negative, then we might get away with just scrubbing the filth out of the house, and putting a little effort into upgrading appliances and fixtures. If it tests positive, then the restoration is much more extensive. While it is not a requirement that the house be torn back to studs, it would probably be the safer route. At the very least, it would have to be sealed with physical barriers after cleaning, like laying down linoleum and painting all exposed surfaces. You can't even set out trash and cleaning supplies on the curb for pickup, in case someone comes along to inspect what you've set out. It must be taken to the hazmat landfill.
Are we up for this level of remediation? We haven't gotten that far on the house we considered today. We haven't even decided whether it's worth our time to run that sort of test. But it made me stop and evaluate my determination. I'm not scared off by houses that are in rough shape, not automatically. I have had to clean up rental property destroyed by a meth user before. It isn't fun, but it isn't impossible. I would prefer not to go down that route again. But as I thought about it, I'm not scared off of a challenge like that, not to the level of dismissing it out of hand. I'm sure I can find something more interesting than a filthy house in a 1970s neighborhood, if I'm going to really put my back into a renovation, though. There was a hundred year old house that came out in our realtor's emails a week or two back, that was in horrible, horrible shape. Like boarded up windows and a garage that looked like the next wind off the Flatirons would blow it over kind of bad shape. But there is something about that property that makes the both of us feel like getting our hands dirty. After we had the conversation about whether we were brave enough to take on the icky house that scared our realtor today, the man told me that if he was going to put that much work and money into a rebuild, then he would rather throw his talents at the historic house. I agreed that it sounded like more fun, until he went digging for the listing. It now says "no more contracts, house has been condemned." Well. That brought us up short. We are both fans of the show Rehab Addict, and we would love to bring a house back from the edge like its star Nicole Curtis did, but I get the feeling there's not a bank in the country who would loan us the money to do it. If we could get it for the cash we will get from the sale of the condo, that's one thing. But in this case, even the land is worth more than the money we'll net after paying our realtor and paying off the HOA (special assessments come out of our sale proceeds in a lump sum). We can't even afford a condemned house in cash. Not in this market.
We haven't moved yet. There is still time for the right house/project to show up on our radar. All this waiting and wondering is taking its toll on all of us. I feel like taking a page from Jackie's book, and just flopping over on the floor and waiting for someone to come pat me on the belly and tell me to be brave and patient and it will all work out. My house is out there somewhere. Park West will be a reality, someday. Until then, it's flopping time.
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