Shopping for a house: Take one

We went and looked at a house earlier this week. We had a list on Sunday that we narrowed down and this one was far and away the top of the crop. Kate and I are looking for a place that we can fix up, so the top of the crop looks a little different to us then it might to you. We talked to our new Realtor Karen and set up a time to see this diamond in the rough. I had spent the last couple of nights pouring over the Web learning all I could about a good fixer upper vs. a money pit and felt pretty good going in.

When we got into the house we saw that all the floors were covered in carpet and the previous owners had walled in the old fire place for some reason. We pulled up some carpets in the dinning room to reveal hard wood floors underneath. Bingo! The kitchen was large and had a bay window looking out into the side yard. The house reeked but Kate and I only saw what would be. The next door neighbor had said that there were animals in the roof and that there were at least three roofs on the place. It looked as if we would need to replace that and probably the eves as well. As we went up stairs the real problems started to mount. I saw a couple door frames slanted a little and cracks up the wall leading from the sloped entry ways. I didn't want to see it because I knew right away it meant a bad foundation. Then more and more tell tale signs presented them selves. Floors slanted down towards the back and there were cracks in the back porch. Our four bedroom fixer upper for $54,000 was slowly looking to be more work then we were up for. Kate was so excited about this place but I had to be the bad guy and say it was too much for us. She was really disappointed and didn't want to look at other properties that night but after some time she came around. We picked out ten more places and set a time with Karen to check them out. Our diamond in the rough is out there!