5/2 House Hunting: House 4

House 4: $445,000 3 bed / 1.75 bath / 1,560 square feet / 5,508 square foot lot / 1 car carport

The Good:

Even though this house was only about a block off of highway 99, the neighborhood felt very residential, and I would not have been worried about the kids playing outside.

The back yard was dog ready. There was one point of failure (a gap dogs could have gone under) which the current owners had already blocked with a log.

The living room area was nice and large, plenty big enough to have people over or to play video games, even using the Kinnect. The kitchen had been recently redone and had a very nice stove/oven (even if it was electric).

It was the best three bedroom floor plan/flow house that we saw yesterday. Giant windows let lots of light into both the master and living room.

The Bad:

While the living room was lovely, the flow from living room to dining room and kitchen was bad. They felt as if they were separated, even if it was only by an open section of hallway.

The kitchen area was also where the washer dryer hookups were. (They tried to hide this by not having a w/d in the house, but I look for these things.)

Except for one very tiny section, the entire back yard was paved over. It was where the one covered parking spot was, and while it made it easy to see how to add a second covered parking spot, it was not a good back yard for dogs, kids, or bbqs.

The master bedroom was separated from the living room by glass French doors. While they had blinds on those doors, I never really like my master (or any bedroom) being that close to the public spaces.

All the windows in the house still had aluminum frames. And the bathroom window was only single pain (did not look really closely on the other windows). But basically this said to us that we would need to spend another $20k plus on the house within the next year to get new windows put in, in order to avoid giant heating bills and mold problems.

The Verdict:

While outside space is not everything, no good outside space for dogs or kids is just a deal breaker. Add to that the windows that need to be replaced, and the house was just not for us.