Even More Houses

We toured more houses. Two winners in my book this time around. The market locally seems to be expanding, with sellers lowering prices.

1830 Avocet

Little old lady and big dog still living there. It does have a new sewer and main water line connection, new bathroom. The spot you were worried about in the basement that looked like water damage just looked worn to me. Maybe a little water damage, but not much. The drywall felt dry, not stained as I've seen water-logged drywall look, and the basement did not smell musty. Yard needs a lot of work due to the new water/sewer connection. Small garage, might get one car in it. Big back yard, close to church. Steep, narrow stairs to basement. Parts of the house in need of a refresh or update. It's all functional, but a lot of it looks worn.

270 E 21st Street.

Not yet on the market. Owner has done a complete remodel. New plumbing, new electric, gas heat. Basement fully finished, has two new egress windows. Upper floor has all new windows as well. Access to basement is via the garage, which is even smaller than the one on Avocet. Probably not getting a car in there, but a good work area. Basement staircase has a twist in it, so probably not getting any big furniture down there without a fight. Gas heat. Yard needs a lot of work. House itself on the outside is not much to look at (see photos attached). Very close to church and a tidy community park. Neighborhood had a lot of young families, judging by the people we saw walking and on bikes. Neighborhood is well-kept and quiet. $310,000 when it's on the market. Google photo is a little old, the bare lot next door has a vinyl fence around it now. Has alley access. And squirrels.

Lexi and Keaton are looking to expand their search to Pocatello. We'll have to leave that up to them to tour, as we're not willing to go that far. They have given notice they don't intend to renew their lease at the end of the month, so they'll be coming this way sooner or later.

Looking for Houses

We have, of course, been heavily into looking for houses as Lexi and Keaton prepare for their return to the Idaho Falls area.

Our first foray into the market was, as I blogged earlier, pretty scary. It's been better since, though a mixed bag of quality and everything with prices a lot higher than what we saw when we bought our current house in 2011/2012.

We have since done two rounds of house tours on their behalf:

First, Aug. 13:

701 Moonlite Drive

1970s build. Kitchen has had some updates but the rest of the house feels like it's in the 1970s. Not terrible, but some updating would be needed over time. Electric baseboard heat, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in Idaho Falls, but will mean a drier heat than what's provided by gas. No AC. Nice deck out back, with great shade trees, including a plum tree. Yard is smallish, but the back yard borders on a city park and you have gate access to the park. Shingles look like they've been replaced in the last 10 years or so. Mom said there was a musty smell inside. I also noticed pet odors in some rooms. Might be cured by carpet cleaning, might not. Layout reminds me of the Sugar City house, split level. One car garage. Stair handrails are iron, and kinda felt funny under the fingers.

1758 Peggy's Lane

Early 1990s build. Interior in general felt modern and updated. Nice deck on the front of the house. There were signs of water damage in one of the basement bedrooms. The listing says natural gas heating, but Juan and I suspect that's an error as there are Cadet heaters (electric) all over the house, and I couldn't find a furnace. We have such heaters in our house, but don't use them much. Where this house and the Moonlite house are on Idaho Falls Power, they have much cheaper electricity than we do. It has a built-in wall AC unit in the upper floor. Exterior of the house is a bit frightening. It looks like they had a guy with a paint sprayer paint the exterior without doing any taping or covering of items. Paint all over the window trim, some on the glass, some on the concrete. They even painted parts of their garden hoses. They didn't scrape or repair any of the spots on the exterior that needed scraping or repairing, and it looked like there were quite a few spots where the siding (wood shiplap) would have to be replaced. With the painting we saw and with the water damage in the basment, we suspect they did a slapdash paint job to try to hide some structural defects that are letting water in.

1044 Westergard

Built in 1959. I'll be honest, of the three we saw tonight, this was the best. It was clean inside, no smells, looks like mostly new carpet. Some updates (mainly kitchen). One stall garage. No trees whatsoever. Fence in the back is leaning like our old one, so it would need replacing. Gas heat, and what looks like a new furnace. Exerior needs some scraping and painting, but at least they haven't covered things up by doing the job themselves. Basement is partly finished (two rather large rooms are finished, one has what looks like an old fireplace in it (Brick wall and platform), but the chimney is no longer in place. Mom was jealous of the basement cabinet storage. Other half of the basement is unfinished, but that's where the furnace and water heater are. Lots of potential down there, certainly lots of storage space. Basement does not have egress windows (big enough to climb out of in a fire) so you really shouldn't use the rooms down there for sleeping. You could cut the concrete and put egress windows in (like what we have in our basement).

And then on Aug. 22:

660 Butterfly Lane

Bigger house with double garage and a greenhouse in the back. Corner lot. Lots of room and storage. Heat is electric, with baseboard heaters in part of the house and heat cable in the ceiling of other parts of the house. Also has a fireplace in the basement. Juan mentioned that the electric bill was probably about $120 a month, year-round. No air conditioning. Yard is nice.

740 Butterfly Lane

This house is small, just over 1,000 square feet. Three bedrooms, no basement. It does have gas heat. Lots of updates throughout the house, and it all looks well done. Tile floor in the kitchen looks like I did it, so a little uneven. Yard would need some work, but it does have a bigger back yard than the first house. Probably would want to put in some privacy fencing or put up some bushes that grow to screen the neighbors. It is fenced with a chain link fence on three sides, maybe four feet tall. A good starter home, one which you could buy, build equity,and then sell in seven to ten years depending on market conditions and replace with something bigger. No AC, but might have option to add such since it has a furnace and ductwork. Also, small enough you could probably cool it with a few window AC units.

363 8th Street

A lot of updating has been done, including water piping and electric, by the looks of it. One room on the main floor looks like it has original hardwood. All the floors were squeaky,and Mom kept encountering bugs. Basement ceilings are 7 feet, so you're ducking going through the doorways. It has a gas fireplace on the main floor, but the rest of the heating is radiant heat via heated water (so think radiators). Kitchen not up to much int his house. Yard was bigger than I expected for a house on the numbers street, and has alley acccess for an RV pad. Electric work in the garage looked incomplete, and the garage needs a good scraping and painting. Some concrete spalling on the foundation, uneven floors in the basment. Has a nice front porch, but it needs some wood repair and a scraping and painting.

2081 John Adams

Again, a bigger house. Nice yard. It has electric baseboard heat, but has gas stoves on the main level and in the basement. Garage reminds me of ours in Ammon, where you could get two vehicles in it, but it would be a squeeze. Nice updates throughout the house. A lot of closet storage. Some of the closet doors need to be adjusted, but that's something that could easily be fixed. Nice back yard with a big porch area. Driveway is sloped. We parked in it with the parking brake on. John Adams can be a busy street in the morning and at 5 pm, with some traffic noise. One of the bedrooms is set up as a hair salon,complete with a shampooing sink. This house is the most expensive one on the list, If I remember right, but there's a lot there, with a lot of square footage.

None of these houses, including one that barely stretched to 1,000 square feet, is under $300,000. That stuns me. When we bought our current house in 2012, it was, granted, at the bottom of a bad market. We paid $140,000 for 2,700 square feet. We would be priced out of this neighborhood now.

Two more potential houses to look at in the near future:

Neither of these are on the market yet, though the agent we're working with predicts they'll be in the $320,000 range. It's scary out there, folks.

Visiting Williston

We just got back from a whirlwind five-day weekend in the exotics of Williston, North Dakota, and environs. We were there to visit Lexi and Keaton, and to deliver all of Lexi's things that they didn't take with them after their wedding.

I feel bad knowing that Keaton is still surviving on the one carload of stuff that he brought with him, but we didn't know about that until we were already there, or we could have gotten some of his stuff too.

A few pictures:

Their apartment complex. Theirs is on the second floor, second apartment in, with the little bit of cardboard over the window above the balcony door.

The town itself resembles Las Vegas in a few respects, in that you can start out on a six-lane road, then suddenly be shunted onto a two-lane track without changing direction, as the road shoots through developed and undeveloped areas.

But where Las Vegas has casinos, Willison has things like this:

These are both across the street fron their apartment.

From their complex, you can see at least eight of these flares, and there are oil pumpers literally everywhere, making somebody money.

And there they are, with all of Lexi's good piled around them.

We hope they do well. They've got some choices to make as they look at their future, and we need to remind them to make them together, and to keep God involved in their plans.

'Tis Done

There's a lot to write about, of course. And I should do it now. But these two are just starting their adventure together.

So more later.