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.
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