On our first day of looking at multifamily places (in person), we found a place that would be absolutely perfect for us and our friends. x
It's too soon for our timeline, but if not one of a kind, it's one of not too many. There aren't that many places that tick all our boxes, even from online searches, so it was stunning to find one that did so and then some. We looked at several places, and when we got home, we all danced around what we thought, but soon discovered that we unanimously thought the same place was head and shoulders above the rest.
We're going to see how far we can stretch ourselves to make it work. I'm summoning all my mental strength and going to be doing a ton of budget projections to make sure we wouldn't be taking on more than we can afford.
If we stretched, it would only be for a couple of months to a year. But even that feels weird, so I'm going to look at the budget in detail to see what that would really mean.
Tuesday I talk to a broker to see if preapproval is an option with the assets and income we have. If we get preapproval, we make an offer.
If we make an offer and it's accepted, it's going to be a strange and crazy couple of months! But with five adults working together (us and our friends) I know we could pull it all together.
So, good vibes and thoughts please!
Found THE place
May 25th, 2014 at 03:42 am
May 25th, 2014 at 04:48 am 1400993283
May 25th, 2014 at 02:08 pm 1401026938
Just keep in mind that there will always be something better. Don't get too caught up in this being "it". (That said, sometimes things just work out and I believe that too. We honestly never did much house shopping. The most amazing homes were always like the first we looked at. & we are very particular. We looked for months last time and never ended up moving because we did not like anything. Whenever we have bought a home it was the first we looked at. Sometimes it just feels "meant to be". I can certainly respect that).
Good Luck!
May 25th, 2014 at 03:18 pm 1401031109
May 25th, 2014 at 07:30 pm 1401046206
And good point, MM--we haven't seen this kind of place come up for sale since we've been looking, but it's worth checking the recently-solds to see if they do tend to come up once in a while.
May 25th, 2014 at 09:51 pm 1401054691
May 26th, 2014 at 02:36 am 1401071798
Pictures coming soon I hope.
May 26th, 2014 at 04:50 am 1401079856
May 27th, 2014 at 01:09 am 1401152962
Minneapolis has a school lottery system, so location doesn't matter TOO much (though you don't want your default school to be untenable). The default school is pretty good for the new place, and much more convenient than the default for our current home. There are bus options from the new place to more desirable schools too.
I hope there won't be a bidding war because the asking price is already a stretch for us right now (because it would require 10% down per the first banker I spoke to; the mortgage payment itself wouldn't be a problem, but scraping up more down-payment money would be harder).
LF, will post photos if it becomes ours! It needs sprucing up on the inside, so there will need to be before-and-afters of it.
FT, it seems to be kind of a dream home for us! (Assuming it passes inspection, of course.) What's great is that it wouldn't be many people's dream home since it's a duplex, but we would love to live with our friends so it's just what we want.