Dreaming...

[Britesea]

yes, please get rid of the add-on; it obviously leaks for one- it's green with moss.
I could see it looking really cute and cozy with your fixes though.

 

[goatgurl]

the house is pretty cute and certainly does have potential. and like Britesea said, tear down that moldy add on. there looks to be water damage in several places too. will you have the $ from the sale of your place to pay for the repairs? you'll have to take that all into consideration. is it in an area you like? and did i understand that DH is going to stay in SA? don't bite off more repairs than you can do if its going to just you and DS. will being watching and waiting to see how things go.

 

[tortoise]

Wow, what a story. I lost track of it a couple months ago and CANNOT BELIEVE it dragged on for so long! Can't wait to see what happens next for you!

 

[Denim Deb]

That has a ton of potential.

 

[sumi]

That's is the thing @Denim Deb and the price is amazing for what it is!

@goatgurl DH is going to stay for a month and help me settle, so we can do quite a bit of repairs in that time. He renovated a house from the floor up years ago, so he has experience thankfully. I have elbow grease and buckets of enthusiasm lol. I did budget for house repairs, if needed, so we have some $$ to throw at the essentials for starters.

The house itself, if you look past the paint, it looks structurally o.k., the electricity and condition of the wiring is a HUGE question mark for me though. It appears to need most of the bathroom and kitchen fitted, but it's plumbed in, which is GOOD ($$$$ saved there) A loo and a basin won't cost too much and DH can fit that.

I'd knock that horrible plaster off and take it back to the stone walls, that is so beautiful… Sort out that fireplace, it seems it got water in, and put a wood burner in each side instead. That's the heating sorted.

The add-on at the back is a disaster. Heaven knows what they were thinking, but… you know what I'd do there? I'd put a door in and seal it off from the house at first, then once I have a few K to spare, tear that whole thing down to level with the bottom of the windows and put a conservatory onto the base. Once that is in place, I'll open it up again and extend the kitchen into the conservatory, so I'll have a nice room with loads of natural light. I must confess I've been dreaming about a conservatory for years and just for fun I looked at prices a few weeks ago. They are way cheaper than I expected

We are still waiting to hear what our tenants are doing house-wise, so we don't have a proper time-frame yet, but as soon as we do I'm going to check if this place is still for sale and contact the agent and make some enquiries. This place is definitely worth looking into.

 

[baymule]

you might have to evict tour tenants. don't know what your laws are, but you might want to check on it. liars. they are holding up progress!

 

[sumi]

Our agent phoned this morning to let me know the tenants put in an offer on another property and she is waiting to hear from the seller. She's trying to secure them something to buy and rent in the interim, so they can get out of our hair and we can get our sale completed.

We did give them notice, but the darn lawyer didn't listen when DH told her the date to put on the eviction notice and gave them an extra 2 weeks

 

[baymule]

I am so happy for you. The small frustrations will vaporize when you get underway. The little things, you can handle. The big things, God is in control and he will take care of them for you.

 

[goatgurl]

your lawyer is much nicer than i am. after the stunt they pulled I'd have asked them to leave last week. take a deep breath baby girl, it will come together in God's time... you'll get there

 

[sumi]

Thanks everyone. We are still waiting to hear the fate of our tenants and I'm finding it hard to be patient and even harder not to regret helping them by letting them move in here.

To amuse myself while we wait I phoned the agent with the stone house. The house does need rewiring from what he said, as well as some other repairs that was not apparent, but can get costly in the long run. It's also a repo that the client is very keen to offload, which is not going to work for me right now. Next on the list for phoning is the agent with that cute house near Tralee. Prices are still dropping steadily country-wide so I'm hopeful.