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Tag Archives: Purchases

Positive Stuff! Celebrate All Wins!

It’s time for another update on our projects, and we have good news this week. CAW! (That’s Celebrate All Wins, the thing the FortuneBuilders people say.)

It’s a mystery house! We hope to share more information on this later.

A New House

We’ve got a contract signed on a new acquisition that Carol found. She’s really excited to put her stamp on this house and get it back on the market. Once the deal is all settled, we will share the details and show you this cute house in a great neighborhood in Round Rock. Carol has lots of plans for new flooring, brightening the kitchen up, and making a nice house even nicer.

Meadow Arbor

Since the house went on the market earlier this week, we received four offers! That’s the way it’s supposed to go! We are in the process of negotiating with the highest offer, which was slightly above list price. That feels good. We’ll keep you posted on how that goes. We’re working on getting it inspected and ready to go.

Bright and beautiful porch on the St. John house. Now with fencing.

St. John

This one IS on the market now, as we mentioned on Saturday! Check out the link to all the photos and details. The neighborhood is getting more and more nice rehabs every week, it seems. Like we posted earlier, the new fence has been installed. We just need to install the air conditioning unit on the house, and we are currently getting bids on that. We are letting the new buyer pick their own stove. That’s an incentive!

Taylor Homestead

Anita is still working on last details on the rehab. She has that shed next door looking like a real apartment-in-the-making. She’s waiting for Chris the contractor to be available this weekend to paint the stairs and install the rock facing on the front. It will be the next one to go on the market.

More?

Tomorrow I’ll share news about another project that I bet you didn’t see coming. Stay tuned! And remember, if you need us, just call! 512-807-8777!

 

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What If Plans Change When Buying a House? Tribute to my Oldest Friend

This is about 2012 after we had gone through the first liver treatment with the vet and she had started gaining weight again. By 2016 the vet said that he could not do any more for her and she was on borrowed time.

This is not an easy post to write, but I wanted to write it as a reminder that when buying a house, plans change. I also said I would share this house buying adventure and this is certainly part of it.

The house that we found has 7 acres. The plan was to fence off about one and a half for the dogs, and leave 5 for my mare, Ricci and baby donkey Bocephelus. That was a real motivator for me with this property. I wanted to give my 22 year old mare a nice place to retire and live out her days. She has battled liver failure for about 5 years now.

I am sad to report that last Thursday, August 3rd, my oldest friend passed away from the liver failure. However, I got permission from the sellers to bury her on the property, because I just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her behind.

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We Found a House, and It Is Clean! Now What? Part 4

Before Pictures!

Bedroom 2 before with owl under window

Stairs Before

Bedroom 1 Before

Just as I predicted the lady did an incredible job at the house in getting it clean! Almost barefoot clean if not for the stray nails here and there.

So what’s next? Okay, so here it is. I have a pretty strict budget on what I can spend on the remodel that gets added to the mortgage. So now we are getting bids from contractors. I have one bid to be here in the next two or three days, and another bid that is in progress. I have received a ballpark number that is so under budget, I might be able to add something else in. It is really going to just depend on where we are when the final bid comes in. I have asked that a certain surprise be added for my husband that no one could guess in a million years, and it is a big one!

Anyway, I want to share some before and afters of the house as far as the cleaning goes. Before is on the left, and After is at the end of this post. You will be amazed! Are you amazed? I knew you would be.

One of the things that I love about this project is taking something out of my head and putting it in front of my eyes. My imagination is just full of the possibilities of what this house is going to be when it is done and the last box is unpacked. Let me tell you, Better Homes and Gardens better not call me more than twice a day. I will answer them when I can.

I have a balcony in my bedroom that is included in the bid to be redone like a deck, and I will be able to look out and see my mare, Ricci and my little baby donkey, Bocephelus. I cannot wait.

It was heavenly out there with the windows open, the smell of a clean house, and the breeze. Oh, that breeze. I cannot wait until my first light rain with the door open to the balcony to sit on my bed and just watch it.

Sometimes in life we have those moments where things are just coming together in a way we could never imagine, and we are just mystified by the generosity and hard work of people. Today is a day like that for me. I am just in awe of life and the new possibilities.

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We’ve Decided to Buy a House! Now What? Part 2

Good day (said like Paul Harvey), this is some more of the story! We found a house! It is a fixer upper in many ways. This house has a very sad story, but we are going to make it happy again. The owners of the house now are really wonderful people and they are working with us on all aspects and have agreed to pay for some of the renovations that we cannot do ourselves (like this poor house does not have walls). It had to be gutted to rid the damage done to it. But its bones are so very strong. I felt home when I walked into it, even with it being a wildlife haven and being vacant for a long time.

The first step is finding a contractor for the walls and ceilings. I had a contractor out on Saturday, and will be accepting more bids this week. This is actually an amazing opportunity, because Lee agreed to walk me through the Project Manager role for this house on the side, so that I can learn more about the process and can help more here and take on more responsibilities. So we get a house and I get to pick Lee’s brain about, “Okay, so what’s next? What does that mean? Why is it done that way?”

How Are We Paying for This?

The sellers have agreed to add the cost of the walls and ceilings to the mortgage, so we will be paying, but not right now. The contractor finding and all of that is up to me. That is good for me! Like I said above, I can learn how I would project manage a house for the Hermits! Once all of the bids are in, and the contractor is decided, we add this on to the asking price of the house. We will do the painting and the flooring and pay for those things ourselves right now. Then we will bring in cabinets and countertops to install, and that is also our cost. Once that is in, we will have plumbing fixtures and light fixtures done which the seller will add to the mortgage and last thing before we move in will be a dog pen built and added to the mortgage, so that our fur babies have plenty of room to run and don’t have to be cooped up.

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We Want to Buy a House! Now What?

It’s a mystery house!

I hope everyone is reading and enjoying the blogs and the Facebook pages and posts! We love to hear from you guys and gals! Today, I want to talk about something that most people experience at least once in their life, and that is the decision to buy a house. My husband and I have actually been very fortunate in the housing department. Our first house belonged to my parents and was a true fixer upper. We could stay there as long as we kept the taxes paid and tried to work on it. Most of my knowledge on carpentry came from that house. Then my husband’s mother left him her home in 2006, which is where we currently live. Lucky, right?

Well maybe not entirely. Both houses have needed extensive repairs, and in both situations we had to move what we could out of the house little by little to move our stuff in. As much as we appreciated the houses and we even loved them, they were never our home. We did not pay for them, even though we put a lot of money and time into them. They always felt like someone else’s house.

We have made the decision to buy our own house. We will be first-time home buyers, and should be paying the mortgage off just in time to retire. I can definitely get behind that idea. The house that we live in now is a 1983 model double-wide that was not put together correctly so there is no way to fix the roof apparently, and those things just weren’t made to last forever. I won’t go over the laundry list of what is wrong, but I have gotten a second and third opinion that we would be better off buying a new house. I like mobile homes, and that is what my plan was as far as a new house. But I have since fallen in love with a place that I want to call home. That has turned my mind off of mobile homes. This is our first public announcement that we are on the road to becoming first-time home buyers. We welcome any advice at all from everyone, and I think it will be a really cool thing to walk with everyone step by step through the process from now until the house warming. So far, there is nothing to show as far as having the house decided on, but that can change quickly.

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