Considerations in home buying...
My house sucks. Despite the new door.
I need a new one...
So I'm spending a lot of time thinking about buying, building, or renting. This is mostly here for my benefit, to give me a chance to think "out loud" without boring people who don't care.
My ideal situation, of course, would be to find either a recently built house that fits all my ideals, or a cheap piece of land in a perfect location. That's not going to happen, so I have to step down at least one level....
I've been hoping for quite a while to buy land and build. There are a few companies selling what seem to be worthwhile kits (such as Shelter Kits, in New Hampshire. It looks like I could build a place I like, with the most important of the features I want, for something well within my price range. Sounds ideal, right?
Well, no. It also turns out that the towns where I'd like to buy land are trying to limit the number of houses built, which means I'd have to buy the land, then wait a long time before I could build. Not so good. Now, there are other town around that might have land I could afford, and might have land I like, and there might be some overlap, if not much. But, it puts that option on the back burner.
So the next option is to try to buy a house and fix it up. I'd probably end up with a place that was in no better condition then where I am now, but at least it would be entirely mine; I wouldn't have to think about the problems inherent in repairing a building that someone else owns. So this is a possibility; I'd end up living further from campus, but that's not impossible to deal with. It would reduce the practicality of randomly driving to campus on the weekend, but whatever. Most likely, I'd end up in South Hadley, since that's where most of the houses I can afford are; the alternative would be to move to someplace like Montague, Turners Falls, or Orange, none of which are real nice towns, though they would make it quicker to get to Eastern Mass, being much closer to route 2.
The easiest option, of course, is to keep fixing up the place I have, and hope better people move in. Unfortunately, making all the repairs that need making would probably require raising dues even more, which would suck.
Anyway. Enough of this babbling for a while.
If anyone reads this and has thoughts on the subject, let me know. But I'll be a bit surprised if anyone actually reads this, let alone has anything to add -- frankly, i don't think I'd read it, and I wrote it!
I need a new one...
So I'm spending a lot of time thinking about buying, building, or renting. This is mostly here for my benefit, to give me a chance to think "out loud" without boring people who don't care.
My ideal situation, of course, would be to find either a recently built house that fits all my ideals, or a cheap piece of land in a perfect location. That's not going to happen, so I have to step down at least one level....
I've been hoping for quite a while to buy land and build. There are a few companies selling what seem to be worthwhile kits (such as Shelter Kits, in New Hampshire. It looks like I could build a place I like, with the most important of the features I want, for something well within my price range. Sounds ideal, right?
Well, no. It also turns out that the towns where I'd like to buy land are trying to limit the number of houses built, which means I'd have to buy the land, then wait a long time before I could build. Not so good. Now, there are other town around that might have land I could afford, and might have land I like, and there might be some overlap, if not much. But, it puts that option on the back burner.
So the next option is to try to buy a house and fix it up. I'd probably end up with a place that was in no better condition then where I am now, but at least it would be entirely mine; I wouldn't have to think about the problems inherent in repairing a building that someone else owns. So this is a possibility; I'd end up living further from campus, but that's not impossible to deal with. It would reduce the practicality of randomly driving to campus on the weekend, but whatever. Most likely, I'd end up in South Hadley, since that's where most of the houses I can afford are; the alternative would be to move to someplace like Montague, Turners Falls, or Orange, none of which are real nice towns, though they would make it quicker to get to Eastern Mass, being much closer to route 2.
The easiest option, of course, is to keep fixing up the place I have, and hope better people move in. Unfortunately, making all the repairs that need making would probably require raising dues even more, which would suck.
Anyway. Enough of this babbling for a while.
If anyone reads this and has thoughts on the subject, let me know. But I'll be a bit surprised if anyone actually reads this, let alone has anything to add -- frankly, i don't think I'd read it, and I wrote it!