More househunting. Argh.

[almeda]

So, very long frustrating story (that I will not tell now), but we didn't get that house we had an offer out on. Because of this, I've been seeing more houses. Joy.

One of the ones I saw last week was promising enough I wanted John to see it; and since I had a slate of stuff to see today, he took the morning off and we saw them all together. Herewith below are the (very positive!) results.

tl:dr version of this post: we have several solid Oak Park prospects and will probably be signing yet more offer paperwork this weekend.

I could actually be very happy (all other things being equal) living for years in any of the four ones we quite liked, it's just a matter of finances, home-inspectiony details I'm not qualified to determine, and whether they'll take what we can offer ($150K max).

The differences between our four prospects are basically all a matter of swings and roundabouts, and the ranking I've chosen is at heart a little arbitrary. If I HAD to pick an order, it's the one I'd pick, but they're all between pretty good and awesome.

So I'm going to get ridiculously organized and listmake, because I'm a geek and I process emotional insecurity by doing research and listing stuff out. The format will be as follows, from least-impressive to most:

Nickname of property

• $Price asked, #bedrooms/#baths, tax valuation [because there are so many different exemptions/etc listed for the properties, we're comparing on what the county assessor has determined the base value quotient magic-number thing for the property to be, as our best guide to how much we'll pay in yearly taxes]
  
• Location notes
  
• Notable positive/awesome features
  
• Key flaw: Each of these properties had one moderately serious worrying thing, though not so worrying we wouldn't consider making an offer. Most require an actual trained home inspector to go look at them and give us a straight answer.
  
• Condition: Move-in ready? What needs to be done before we could live there? What might need to be done in the first five years we live there?
  
• Other discussion

Clear? Good. :->

Auction

• $169,900, 3bed/2ba, $30K
  
• Location: Near northeast corner of Oak Park. Nice neighborhood; reasonable walk to Austin green line station or Austin bus for other destinations.
  
• Awesome: Backyard carefully landscaped, including functional pond. Beautiful gleaming woodwork and original/vintage built-ins throughout first floor. Spacious rooms, high ceilings, decorative leaded/stained-glass windows throughout first floor. Many window seats/built-in benches. Big kitchen. Enormous porches front and back. Sizable yard. Garage. Upper floor is a huge open space with bathroom and closets, perfect for 'kid country'.
  
• Flaw: 95% of upstairs ceiling is closer to the floor than my eyebrows (slanted sides). Adults can only stand upright near centerline or under skylights.
  
• Condition: Move-in ready.
  
• Other discussion: Will be auctioned the week of May 9. Has a reserve bid, probably one higher than we can afford.

Brick Street

• $159,900, 4bed/2ba, $36K
  
• Location: Exceedingly close to a nice big Blue Line stop. Less than a block from a post office. Street fairly recently resurfaced with red brick pavers.
  
• Awesome: Worst-looking house on the block, because all the rest look distinctively higher-class than we could hope to afford. First floor includes a side hallway facilitating circular dog-chase path routings, 2 more large 'bedrooms' available for non-bedroom use. Nice pantry space in kitchen. Apparently-dry basement.
  
• Flaw: Stucco needs to be power-washed, possibly painted/waterproofed. Short sale.
  
• Condition: Currently occupied; move-in ready barring things like paint. Would build cosmetic non-load-bearing divider walls upstairs with doors in them to turn open plan into two bedrooms and a hallway. Carpet can be removed to bare the nice wood floors.
  
• Other discussion: Upstairs floor is entirely open-plan with curtain dividers: two big bedrooms and an enormous line of closet space. 2nd floor also includes bath (with shower), small side-room with a kitchen-style sink in a counter. Shares a driveway with adjacent property that leads to a blind concreted area that is basically two 2-car parking pads at the backs of the properties: no alley access. Property contains a long-abandoned motorcycle covered in ivy that either belongs to this property or the commercial building adjoining the back of the log.

* Parking Lot

• $160,000, 4bed/1ba, $31K
  
• Location: Right off Madison, walking distance to Madison shopping. Next door to a 30+ space municipal parking lot (easy to have driving friends over). Closest property of any in our price range to the strip of businesses along the Green Line in downtown.
  
• Awesome: Great room sizes. Yard already somewhat dog-resistant. 2-car garage. Top floor layout is 3 very spacious bedrooms, spacious hall, plus closets -- v. convenient. Roomy, bright stairwells both up and down. Some leaded/stained-glass detail windows.
  
• Flaw: Some of the stucco exterior is falling off, and would need to be repaired (potentially might need entire cladding replaced).
  
• Condition: Currently occupied; move-in ready barring things like paint. One front bush is eating the path and probably not pruneable; might need to remove both evergreen bushes (would replace with natives). Address stucco problem quickly to avert moisture issue.
  
• Other discussion: Sellers need to close by June 30; we may not be able to line up our loan before then, depending on lender moo-ness.

* Two-Flat

• $169,900, 5bed/3ba, $38K
  
• Location: 3 blocks from Blue Line station; 1.5 blocks from Roosevelt bus (either would work for John's commute). Congenial neighbor to the north who chatted to us (and who has a never-used-by-them but highly serious HAM radio mast in her yard). Other adjoining neighbor is a realtor.
  
• Awesome: HUGE. No, that's not big enough type. E N O R M O U S. A big living/dining combo great-room ON EACH FLOOR, plus bedrooms, bath, kitchen, etc. Walls beautifully painted, floors bare gorgeous wood throughout, ceilings nice and high, woodwork significantly original to house (including some of the inside-the-garage woodwork!). Cast-iron enamel footed tub upstairs. Multiple skylights upstairs. Sizable deck in backyard, plus 2 car garage. Leaded/stained-glass decorative windows throughout first floor. Stairwells front and back for extra-awesome "dogs can make big circular chase routes" layout bonus.
  
• Flaw: 'Utility room' section of basement has significant obvious ongoing humidity. Must see if that is addressable short of constantly running a dehumidifier, and make certain its existence hasn't molded any of the surrounding walls internally.
  
• Condition: Absolutely move-in ready (barring mold in basement). Must address wet-room problem. One v. v. high, inaccessible gutter significantly clogged with leaves -- piled clog visible from ground. Would need to get all gutters professionally cleared. Roof appears in very good condition (from ground; I Am Not A Home Inspector). Newer windows throughout upstairs; decorative leaded windows would need external storms added for insulation.
  
• Other discussion: Aside from the damp utility room, the rest of the basement is entirely finished. One room was obviously a home-theater kind of setup, from the outlets and jacks in the walls. It is currently laid out to be two rental units, but we'd live in the whole thing (with possibility for a paying roommate); I really almost like the upstairs kitchen better than the downstairs one, though it seems weird to have a 2nd-floor kitchen. Talkative neighbor says many young kids live on the block.

* Cheapest

• $122,000, 3bed/2ba, $42K
  
• Location: Right on Austin, so guest parking is bizarrely regulated and potentially a PITA. Walking distance to Green Line straight south, or bus to Blue.
  
• Awesome: Stained-glass/leaded decorative windows throughout first floor. Fireplace in wonderful repair, complete with cast-iron original gas heating unit (not to be used by us: to be reconditioned decoratively). Built-in sideboard in dining room. Upstairs bedrooms huge. Biggest yard of any we saw today. Good closets. Big kitchen.
  
• Flaw: It appears there was a mid-remodeling mishap in the upstairs bathroom that led to a significant loss of water containment. There is no toilet in the upstairs bath, and a good amount of ceiling below has fallen, but there is no smell or sign of mold that I can find. Also, a 1'x8" or so patch of the tongue-and-groove flooring upstairs has warped into a raised line from the moisture.
  
• Condition: Offer continent on inspector NOT finding mold from water problem. Needs an upstairs toilet and all the paneling in the basement ripped out with extreme prejudice. Needs new ceiling/repaired ceiling in downstairs bath/hall plus small-area floor repair upstairs. I would prefer if the carpet throughout also went, since the floors beneath seem (from peering in closets, etc) to be perfectly reasonable wood and carpet is a PITA to keep clean with dogs and toddlers.
  
• Other discussion: Finished half of basement has awful 70s fake-wood paneling and is cut up into weird roomlets. There is a massive built-in bar down there we'd be taking out. Overall, less living space than anything else we saw today, but certainly big 'enough'. All the new windows seem to be well-installed; the roof appears to be in very good shape.

Auction is firmly out of the running (though in some househunting weeks it would have equaled the best I'd seen), despite its massive awesomenesses, because of (a) the grownup-proof top floor ceilings and (b) the need to go through who-knows-what hoops to make a bid they'll probably turn down. So we're not bothering.

All our top four are spacious enough to have, for example, John's brother-in-law and entire family come stay for a week without us feeling crowded or all the (combined total: 4) kids having to sleep in one room.

Cheapest is mostly edging out Two-Flat for firsties because it's asking over $40K less, which is no chump-change on anyone's scale. Two-Flat is bigger and has a cooler neighborhood, but it's swings and roundabouts if they won't take what we can pay.

* : Edited to indicate which we're actively pursuing. Brick Street is still sort of an option, but it's over 300 days on the market, so we're not worried it's about to be snapped up if we wait a month or two and see if the others fall through.