So as of the first of August I am officially a home owner. I would have posted sooner but I have been very busy fixing things and generally getting squared away. Plus I had some medical trouble after my sinus surgery. I had a reaction to the steroid I was prescribed and my liver was close to failure. It was crazy, I was literally shaking like Michael J. Fox the reaction was so bad. But, I haven't had a drink in two weeks because of this stuff and my test numbers are getting back to normal. I think I might quite for good. You'd be surprised how amazingly good you feel after two weeks off of the sauce.
Anyway.
I paid $36,000 for an 1100 square foot home (equal sized basement, woohoo!!). My mom was kind enough to "give" me the money to put 20% down so I was able to forgo PMI insurance and I opted out of the escrow for a small hit on my interest rate. I got locked into 5.125% for 15 years. So my payment is $230 a month ($20 less than my rent was) and I have a friend who I'm chargin $100 for a room. I didn't get moved in until the third week of august as I was doing work on the house. I started by ripping out a bunch of water damaged paneling and furred out walls in the basement so I'll be able to get to the foundation to re-morter / tuckpoint. Then two weekends ago my friend and I spent 21 hours (42 man hours in total) completely redoing the plumbing. We ripped out the nasty galvanized steel pipes that doglegged and zig zagged all over the basement for no reason and installed new copper water lines and a tankless electric water heater. Not to toot my own horn, but the plumbing in the place qualifies as a work of art now. Then I upgraded my main breaker panel. I've got a remodel of a bathroom, and a partial rewire job as some of the house is still on old knob & tube wiring and a new roof in the works for next summer, but I think I've got most of my big projects out of the way til next spring.
I can't tell you folks how awesome it is to have ones own space, even if I do have a roommate with dogs. However two rottweilers act as a pretty sweet alarm and burglary deterrent.
Now I just need to get myself a don't treat on me flag for the front porch. LOL
The House
Piles of crap I removed
New water heater and main breaker and beautiful copper water lines
Anyway.
I paid $36,000 for an 1100 square foot home (equal sized basement, woohoo!!). My mom was kind enough to "give" me the money to put 20% down so I was able to forgo PMI insurance and I opted out of the escrow for a small hit on my interest rate. I got locked into 5.125% for 15 years. So my payment is $230 a month ($20 less than my rent was) and I have a friend who I'm chargin $100 for a room. I didn't get moved in until the third week of august as I was doing work on the house. I started by ripping out a bunch of water damaged paneling and furred out walls in the basement so I'll be able to get to the foundation to re-morter / tuckpoint. Then two weekends ago my friend and I spent 21 hours (42 man hours in total) completely redoing the plumbing. We ripped out the nasty galvanized steel pipes that doglegged and zig zagged all over the basement for no reason and installed new copper water lines and a tankless electric water heater. Not to toot my own horn, but the plumbing in the place qualifies as a work of art now. Then I upgraded my main breaker panel. I've got a remodel of a bathroom, and a partial rewire job as some of the house is still on old knob & tube wiring and a new roof in the works for next summer, but I think I've got most of my big projects out of the way til next spring.
I can't tell you folks how awesome it is to have ones own space, even if I do have a roommate with dogs. However two rottweilers act as a pretty sweet alarm and burglary deterrent.
Now I just need to get myself a don't treat on me flag for the front porch. LOL
The House
Piles of crap I removed
New water heater and main breaker and beautiful copper water lines