As I mentioned last week, I looked at a townhouse in Sterling, VA on Saturday. The price was set at $365,000 which seemed like a bargain based on the picture and compared to everything else in the area. Even Zillow.com says the house is worth over $400,000. I [...]
As I mentioned last week, I looked at a townhouse in Sterling, VA on Saturday. The price was set at $365,000 which seemed like a bargain based on the picture and compared to everything else in the area. Even Zillow.com says the house is worth over $400,000. I was worried that there would be something wrong, but I figured that it was just built in 2000, what could happen in just 7 years?
I met with the realtor, and found out that the house was a foreclosure, something I was unaware of previously. This also means that it was not really maintained very well, and I basically left pretty disappointed at what $365,000 gets you…Especially after JD showed me what it gets you in Memphis, TN! I’ll go through the pics and explain my gripes:
Here’s the front of the house. It’s hard to tell, but the stairs just seem like really ugly dirty cement, and the rails along the stairs were all rusting. That is also a huge weed in front of my car by the garage!
You can see by the door there was water damage on the wood here. On top of that, the neighbor also had water damage, but it didn’t seem like anything was being done about it. That worried me a lot…and I’m not the most handy person out there.
This was the dining room area looking back towards the front of the house. This was probably the best part of the house because it was all pretty open. The wood floor was creaking a lot though.
Here was the living room. I really didn’t like the built in cabinet, so that was a huge turn off for me. I’m not a huge fan of dark wood, and I prefer the modern look.
This is the dining room. It had some pretty cheap linoleum flooring.
Here is the kitchen, just very basic and cheap in my opinion. The owner took the refrigerator, so that would have to be put in. You can also see all the realtor cards (there were many more on the other side of the counter), which means the house was showed a lot.
This is the master bedroom. Very small for a master, and I didn’t even realize it was until I saw the bathroom had two sinks:
The other rooms were slightly smaller, and there were two of them with another bathroom in the hallway. Downstairs was a small finished basement area with a door to the garage:
Basically everything in the house seemed to be done as cheap as possible, and I didn’t like that. Another major gripe I had was there was no backyard or deck as the house is back to back with another townhouse. That also means there were only windows on one side of the house. I would rather save more and spend in the $400k range for something much nicer then settle for something like this. Keep in mind, I’m looking for a place to live, not just an investment property. It’s possible that this house could be negotiated down, a little work be done, and flipped for some profit due to the foreclosure status. That makes me conclude that is in fact still a pretty good deal, just not for me.
What did you think based on the pictures? I can tell you that the pictures do make it look better than it looked in person I think.
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Manufacturer and reseller of aftermarket car parts
IT solutions based out of Maryland. From homeusers to mid-sized businesses.
My name is David Pitlyuk and I’m an entrepreneur. I’m always on the lookout for the next big opportunity. This blog hits topics of interest for entrepreneurs, as well as my miscellaneous ramblings.
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Derek
07/16/2007 11:06 amOther than the weed by the garage and the damage near the front door, the pictures don’t look too bad. But like you said, it is hard to get a true feeling for a place just through pictures.
When we were looking in Tennessee, we saw a few homes that looked beautiful in the pictures online but when we visited in person we were very disappointed.
But this series of posts and discussion has renewed our interest in moving and my wife has been searching the online listings in Memphis, lol.
David Pitlyuk
07/16/2007 11:11 amYeah, definitely looks much better in the pictures. I guess it’s really not that bad, but I have a certain requirement for quality, and don’t feel like dropping tens thousands of dollars after buying the house to make it like the way I want right away. Between the “cheap” stuff and lack of deck/backyard/windows on the back side of the house, it just wasn’t for me.
That’s awesome that it motivated you to look for houses again, keep me updated on the search!
Scot Smith
07/16/2007 2:57 pmI wouldn’t pay that much for what I see in the pictures. Around here $400k will get you a pretty nice home.
Chris Gray
07/18/2007 12:01 amYeah, there’s nothing worse than stepping into a house for sale and seeing a huge pile of business cards…not a good sign. As Derek stated, it really doesn’t look that bad from the pictures…too bad it turned out to be lackluster.
split-vizionz
07/28/2007 8:52 pmIn WV, that price would get you a mini mansion…
split-vizionz
07/28/2007 9:04 pmhere is what it gets you for the same price lol[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v365/splitz/house.jpg[/IMG]
40 mins from Frederick which has plenty of tech jobs… near your dad and most importantly near me!
Miss ya buddy