Tag Archives: house hunting

Location, Location, Location…

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The old saw of the real estate trade is that the only three things that really matter are location, location, and location. Not surprisingly, it’s the issue that my own decision has come to hinge upon.

Houses in the town of Covington can be divided roughly equally into two groups… those that have been either refinished and maintained over the years and those that are about to fall down. The line of demarcation between the two is stark and you will know immediately when you’ve passed over it. The house I’ve been toying with is close to that line… very close. The house I have been looking at is on a corner lot on one of the town’s main thoroughfares… make a turn onto one of the side streets and by the time you reach the end of the block, you’ve crossed the line… That’s how close it is.

Plenty of people, especially here in the south are going to say it’s a racial thing, but you’re going to have to take my word for it that it’s really not. Living in Howard County for so long has basically given me a level of ambivalence about who or what lives beside me as long as they leave me the hell alone. The reality is, however, this is still the South and that is a consideration I need to make when thinking in terms of ease of resale when the time comes to move on or up…

I suppose I could always build a giant privacy fence, put in a top-notch security system, ignore the neighbors down the block, and just pay attention to the amazing Georgian across the street…

This old house… again…

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I don’t know what it is that makes me stand in the center hall of an turn-of-the-century house, knowing the back third of the foundation is currently being held up by jacks, that the back porch is quite literally in danger of falling off, and that the entire second floor joist system needs reinforced, and think… I can fix this.

Sure, the place has 16 foot ceilings on both floors, bedrooms that have more square footage than my apartment, and a room downstairs that screams to have floor-to-ceiling book shelves installed, but it also has a bathroom in what should be the butler’s pantry, walls where doors should be, and a kitchen upstairs in what, apparently was once an apartment…. And then there is the location… on the old maple-lined main street, in a neighborhood that has been placed on the National Register, a block from the town square and it’s hundred and fifty year old courthouse.

The asking price is low, in part because of the work that needs done… not quite a gut-job, but close (kitchen, bathrooms, several walls, etc. need go, second floor needs to be reinforced)… but also because the old lady who now owns the place wants to sell to someone who will bring her childhood home back in line with the rest of the neighborhood. The price is low enough, actually, to probably do $100,000 restoration and still be safely inside the margin if I had to resell within a few years.

I know I can bring the fiduciary resources to bear, but can I bring the time and patience to live in a construction zone, with a microwave, hotplate, and “hand shower,” while the contactor guts the electrical, bathrooms, and kitchen, does the structural work, and gets everything to a point where I can do the finish work?

It’s a hell of a project… and could be a hell of a house. Of course I could buy one of the smaller places in the same neighborhood that have already had the heavy lifting done. They wouldn’t quite be in the same “prominent” place in town, but still in the historic district… and more or less ready to move in.

The handwriting is pretty much on the wall that I will be moving here in the next six months and I think I have settled in on an area that could easily be home. Now I just need to stop looking at home improvement pornography and figure out what I can realistically accomplish.

Lust in my heart…

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Again. Being with me on a Saturday morning down here is a bit like being on a grail quest. I’ve convinced myself that the perfect old house is out there, somewhere, taunting me just over the horizon with it’s agonizingly French accent. It takes a leap of faith to make an offer on a house. Making an offer on a house in a state when I don’t yet technically have a job is more like taking a header into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. Yet somehow I think it’s what I am about to do.

This house was the second of three I visited today and was the only one that was ever really in the running. I could go into several long diatribes about the evil things people do to old houses, but that will wait for another night.

Suffice to say that the pictures don’t come close to doing justice to this place. At 106 years old, she was built when Victoria sat the throne of the British Empire and William McKinley was President of the United States, gutted in the last five years with all major electrical, plumbing, and mechanical systems replaced, 2000 square feet put under fresh roof, floors refinished, original trim restored… and for sale at the asking price of $135,000 in a sleepy Southern town of 10,000 (more on the town will follow).

I’m plotting and planning… with a healthy dose of self-doubt and second guessing… the path that wends its way through giving up my seldom visited apartment, moving a substantial amount of “stuff” into dad’s basement and setting up temporary quarters in his guest room to use when I’m required to be in Washington, and finally arrives at buying a house in commuting distance of a job I might actually be assigned to three months from now.

It all sounds perfectly mad and if I weren’t living it, I would probably think I had finally gone ‘round the bend. I’ve had incredible luck with finding places to hang my hat in the past…. Sweet Jesus, I hope it holds for one more round.

You can’t see it, but I’m knocking on wood out here, folks. 😉

House lust…

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Built in 1922, the oak floors and trim were laid down before there was a Great Depression; before Omaha Beach passed into history; before JFK; before Americans could find Vietnam on a map; and before there were red states or blue states. The deep front porch, covered with original terracotta tiles and shaded by a row of oaks, has endured with only a few small cracks. Every door still opens with its glass knob. And the rooms nearly drip with the strong smell of old wood and linseed oil.

I’ve never walked into a house with a realtor to see them stop short, just inside the door, and let out a slow whistle… “Holy shit,” he says, realizing that with only extraordinarily minor modifications, the house has remained nearly untouched by the changes of the last eight decades. The builder’s attention to detail and command of the art and science of his trade are clear. Here, he built a home to last.

I’m smitten with this home, as if it’s been quietly waiting, aging these eighty-four years, knowing I would come. It was spec built for me, generations too early, and if it’s in my power, this place, this old home, on its picture postcard street, will be mine.