h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On a business trip in Ghent a few years ago, the hotel I'd booked turned out to be full, but of course didn't tell me that until I tried to check in.

They'd moved me (without asking) to a different hotel in what used to be a convent or a monastery in the Old Town. Room was huge, a suite of sitting room / dressing room, bedroom and large bathroom, with these really high, beamed ceilings.

Unfortunately it had no heating and single glazed windows, which in January led me to catching a cold. It was a very grumpy Ismarah who chewed out the travel company afterwards.

It had an odd sort of atmosphere too...everyone walked around particularly quietly and seemed on their best behaviour...as if it was still a 'holy' building.

Saw a couple other nice ones this morning. I've changed my search parameters a bit since K started his new job- he's working 60-odd miles south of the city, so I've stopped looking further north than where we are now. I've opened up to the possibility of being a few miles further south than our original target area.

So anyway, I'll share a couple of links for now, but I'm not as of yet making any appointments for walkthroughs or anything. K would like to wait till he's been at work for at least 30 days.

This one is really cute:
http://tinyurl.com/2c82uhb

And this seems kind of cute (and really cheap- wonder what's wrong with it?):
http://tinyurl.com/27nz5gb

The first one is really really cute! Somehow it seems bigger than the other ones you've posted, the kitchen especially. Bonus room fully done and extra WC is good - less expense for you and K would have somewhere to drum?

The second one... Hmm. The other properties listed for price comparisons weren't much more than that one, about 10k extra or so, with the description 'priced to sell quickly' but it's been on that website for almost 2 months which I wouldn't think was quick. It looked like it wasn't completed - some refurb or something going on and not all done yet. Plus it's empty, which always makes less imaginative buyers have trouble visualising things. Could it be an ex-rental or not such a great area?

How do the two locations compare? How are the neighbours? How is the back-garden of the second one? What is really up with the inside of that one?

Weirdly, I think I'd spend twice the amount and go for the first one. It seemed immaculate and I'm guessing from the price that it's in a 'better' area by some sort of standard, whether it's commuting, kids schools or crime. There's something for sure.

Makes sense not to look till K feels a bit more settled in his job. Is there a probationary period there? If there is, and it's longer than a month, I'd wait until that was a cert before going full steam ahead, but then I'm paranoid.

OK, just looked on the maps properly.

I have no idea why the other one is that cheap - suspect it's the state it's in cause they're really close... The area can't change that much? Plus that one is right by the park.

I think the first one is really cute, too.

Two months on the market isn't that long, with the real estate market what it is around here. A lot of foreclosures, etc. That last one I fell in love with had been on for nine months before it sold. As for empty houses- we've only viewed a couple which were occupied, everything else has been vacant. We kind of prefer viewing vacant homes, where we don't have to guess what it'd look like without someone else's hideous furniture and junk.

Let's see, with regards to location, these two are a mile apart. The first is on the same street we live on now, just about 3 1/2 miles south; the second is a mile north and a half mile east. So the same neighborhood; same schools, same train station, etc. I'm guessing neither are former rentals. You rarely see actual houses for rent. The Humboldt Park area is spotty and it's possible that one or both homes may be in one of the more iffy areas. It's also possible the second home needs a lot more work. Crimewise it may not be much worse than where we're at- it used to be really bad, but in the last couple of decades the City has been doing away with housing projects, etc, and most areas around here are mixed income. With exceptions of course, most neighborhoods are roughly the same.

While I also tend to lean towards paying twice as much and moving right in, that first house might not be worth the asking price. The second is Real Estate Owned, which means it's been repossessed, so the bank might be trying to offload it and minimize their losses. On the other hand, it could be a real dump- we've seen quite a few and the cheaper they are, the more likely to need extensive remodeling, if not a gut rehab. Hard to say from just a few photos. Listings with few photos (sometimes none!) arouse my suspicions, for sure.

I can't really see much of the back yard for the second one, but neither appear to have any garden at all, so I'd have to do all my own planting, but I don't mind digging up a bit of lawn to plant some flowers or tomato plants.

I don't know about probationary periods for sure- with most employers it's 90 days or so, but K said he'd be eligible for benefits after 30 days so I assume that's the end of any probationary period for him. It's still at-will employment, so there's no guarantees that something won't happen later, but there never is, is there?

OK, looking at those other maps more closely, the second home is right by the park, just a few blocks away. I thought it was further south than it actually is. It's actually just a little ways west of K's old neighborhood. That area right by the park used to be really scary, and it's possible it hasn't improved as much as around the first home. There's a major street halfway between them and it strikes me as a little nicer area just south of that street than north of it, if that makes any sense (and it could just be my perception, clouded by having lived close to that park in the second listing 20 years ago when it was REALLY rough).

Obviously we'd check out the neighborhood before making any decisions... we opted against buying something I loved because I would have had to walk through a bad area between the home and the train station. Summer is a good time to figure that out. While knocking down public housing projects and spreading people out has eliminated a lot of Bad Neighborhoods and moved a lot of gang activity out to the suburbs where housing is cheaper, it's also meant that most neighborhoods have at least some dodgy people around and some areas see more activity of that sort than others.

>The first is on the same street we live on now, just about 3 1/2 miles south; the second is a mile north and a half mile east.

What I meant to convey there was that the second home is a mile north and east of the first listing, not of my current location. I'm still 3 miles from that place, too.

Well, while the first one looked really nicely decorated and maintained and more move in ready, the second one at that price would allow you to do pretty much anything you want, I'd guess. That way you'd be sure about all the works being proper and it would be to your taste.

I actually wouldn't buy a house that had a really nice new kitchen because the odds of it being right for me are slim to none and I'd feel really stupid and guilty if I then started off by ripping it out.

I'd always buy the fixer upper, proved the location was right and there were no problems with the structure. But then I like a project..

I agree, ismarah!

I love the staircase in the first one, but otherwise, I like the second one better. on the three windows in that one photo - I love skylights and sloping ceilings.

that first one is fantastic - very Dutch and all those lovely wood floors.

Buy them both.

If I had to pick, I'd agree with Mala and say the sloping ceilings and skylights of the second one are amazing. I can just imagine lying in that bath and looking out at the stars.

Sloping ceilings are pretty, but a bit of a pain when it comes to climate control- I hate to heat unused space. Skylights are pretty, too. My parents' old house had leaky ones. Obviously leaky skylights wouldn't pass muster at inspection so no biggie there. But yeah, how cool it would be to lie in the bath and look up into the sky.

Can't afford them both, sadly!

I'm thinking that the significantly lower price for the second may not be because of serious structural damage (most realtors specify that they'd prefer to sell to rehabbers in those cases, because banks won't offer financing if the home fails inspection) but because it's a repo. I'm going to do a bit of digging and see if I can find past sales history and appraisals, etc.

Personally, I prefer the first one overall but for nearly half the price, I'd be inclined to remodel the second... but even if we had the skills (which we don't), neither K nor I have the time or inclination to do any DIY work. Any remodeling would be professionally done. We do know a couple of carpenters (K's bandmates) who do excellent work and wouldn't rip us off, but it wouldn't be free, so whatever we buy, I need enough left after making the down payment to get any necessary remodeling out of the way without cleaning out our savings. With a $25K down payment I figure we could swing another $25K in remodeling before moving in.

Also- we both prefer brick to frame, for aesthetic reasons as well as being cheaper to insure and to heat/cool.

interesting properties!
Certainly from the outside I prefer the first one - looks to me like a cross between a chapel and a barn!

Although again I see some problems with the location of the fridge in #1 and personally I find that style of kitchen too fiddly and dark, but looks like it has been done properly. Love the dining room, but the master bedroom (photo #6?) looks a bit of a tight squeeze for that bed - which looks more like a king size than a superking. Hallway I am very taken with - might just nick a couple of ideas from that for my hallway! Rest of it looks ok - although what is the long thin room in photo #12? And a decent garden and outside area. Hmm, very tempting! Although on the map it looks quite close to the main rail line, noise prob not so much of a problem as vibrations from freight units.

BTW, what does "Ownership: Fee Simple" mean on the details?
Oh, and "Water: Lake Michigan" That's rather specific isn't it?
Or is that just the nearest location to get fresh water from?

As for #2 - I have to say it *looks* like a repo. Although the Dali-esque chest of drawers in photo 3 adds a certain something to the place!
Bathroom looks a little cramped to me - I think I'd be banging my head on the ceiling all the time in there. And it doesn't seem to be terribly well thought out - large blank areas with nothing in them. Nah, looks very blank canvas as you say and I think needs more than just a touch of paint and polyfiller to make it decent.

Oh, and looking at the satellite photo for the location - I reckon you might get some noise from the 'house ' three doors up on the opposite side of the access road.

But yes, both got good potential!
Some nice houses round there as well looking at the 'other properties' links.

of course, if you really wanted something to make your own, and for only 50k:

http://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/823-N-Monticello-Ave-60651/home/13284921

Yeah, that's the kind of place you get a rehab for, and then gut it or knock it down.

OK, to answer your two questions before getting off on tangents.

Fee simple means there are no association fees like there would be in a subdivision, condo or townhouse, which the homeowner pays as monthly assessments. Normally, when there are assessments paid to an association, they take care of all the common area expenses like trash removal and water, landscaping, snow removal, etc. Fee simple doesn't necessarily mean there is no homeowner's association (with a single family home in the City, there would not be) but that there are no monthly assessments.

Some suburban areas use well water as opposed to Lake Michigan water, which is piped from the water reclamation district. The suburb I grew up in had Lake Michigan water as well. The reason they specify this is because people who use well water also have cisterns/ septic systems for their sewage. If you get Lake Michigan water, you're billed for water; if you have well/ cistern system there may not be a municipal system for handling it (and presumably it's billed differently, if at all). This won't be an issue anywhere we're looking to buy, but it's a good question to ask if you're viewing these listings from afar.

I'll look back at the links and photos and muse about your other comments, Ictoan.

All this input helps me think objectively about this stuff!

OK, I think the kitchen in the first one is a teeny bit smaller than mine, but bigger than a lot of places. The fridge is in more or less the same exact spot as ours is in our kitchen now, so I could live with it. The darkness may be from the angle of the photo- I suspect we could do something to imprive lighting if needed.

The master bedroom in house #1- it's 15X11 which is a bit bigger than what we have now, at 9X12, and we only have a queen sized bed. I'd want to measure it, obviously, as we do, but it sounds do-able.

The main bathroom in that house is *exactly* how I intend my main bathroom to be wherever we wind up, even if I have to remodel to get it there.

That room #12 is sort of an enclosed front sun room, it's at the front of the house and the living room is on the other side of that wall. There's a doorway leading in, and it might make a nice place for a couple of chairs and a bookcase. The carpet would have to go on account of the cats and my asthma, but it could be tiled.

If I'm looking at the map correctly (and it's hard because I can't fully read the street names at the far right), that rail line there is a CTA train line, and I live closer to that same line (further north) now. It's not as bad as you think, and I suppose I'm used to it after all these years. Then again, I grew up across the street from a commuter rail station so I might just be totally immune.

Forgot to look at the satellite view of the house in the second photo to see what the third "house" was about... must check that out.

I agree about home #2 that it's a lot of blank area- and IMO a lot of wasted space. Not a huge fan of spa tubs like that, either.

Good grief, if I didn't know better I'd think it was an auto repair shop, with all those cars...

I keep forgetting to look at aerial views of these places (mainly because I roughly know the area). I should!

cheers for answering those queries PC - these little cultural differences are all interesting to me.
I guess our equivalent of the assessment fees would be maintenance fees. Usually only found with blocks of flats or some of the posher mini estates and walled estates. Cover much the same thing - except with blocks of flats they cover communal building upkeep and improvements as well.

Not sure how keen I'd be on well sourced water in a city - potential for contamination must be pretty large I'd have thought.

enjoy your musing

Yes, it sounds like assessment fees here are about the same thing as maintenance fees there. (Except that property tax bills include assessments for water and trash removal. Our water in the city is metered, and it's on the city tax bill twice a year.) And yes, in a condo building or something similar upkeep (usually referred to as CAM, common area maintenance) and improvements are paid for with association fees too. Seems like most places pool all the fees and then pay for stuff as it's needed, like roofing repairs, etc.

I'm not aware of any well water in the city, just some of the more remote suburbs and exurbs. It's not something I've thought about at all, and I guess I just look past those things on listings.

The cultural differences are interesting to me, too!

Musing is great fun, especially if it helps me avoid working.