My Aunt Marcia comes up with awesome, crazy ideas. Her latest was to buy a home in Pittsburgh, where she has never lived, fix it up, and rent it out. Luckily for me, I happen to live here. (Yeah, that part obviously was no coincidence.)
She found about 10 houses that met her criteria, namely located in a specific neighborhood, with central air, and at least one and a half bathrooms, and then prioritized them for me. I picked the ones that weren't on a busy street, found a few more, called a realtor she had begun talking to, and started looking at houses.
I narrowed it down to the best 4 or 5 and Marcia made plans to come in and see them. She arrived this past Wednesday (Nov. 2) from Boston and I drove her around to see all of the ones I had disregarded, seen and decided weren't right, and the ones that we would be seeing later that day. We met with Julie Courtney from Coldwell Banker (who is great to work with, by the way) and saw some great houses that were move-in ready. Then we went to look at Julie's listing, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath colonial on, fittingly enough, Colonial Drive in Mount Lebanon.
This house is a true diamond in the rough. It was designed, built, and originally occupied by local architect Charles Z. Klauder. He was the architect who designed the nationality rooms in the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt. The only other owner was a man who lived there with his family and recently died at the age of 90-something.
Lots of people walk into a house and can only see what is there, not potential. Marcia and I are in the second camp. It's a good thing, because the house is a disaster. Everything needs to be updated. We can not only see decorating potential, but how we could demolish closets and build new ones, or move staircases, to maximize space. It has good bones, as they say. I think she instantly fell in love with it. I should mention this house is in a prime location, on a very quiet street, but two blocks from the Beverly Road shops and my kids' elementary school. Aren't the 2 rules of real estate that you should buy the worst house on the street and location, location, LOCATION? This one certainly fit the bill and we became more and more excited about it as we thought about it. Neither one of us slept well Wednesday night.
I should also mention that Julie had convinced the sellers to drop the price on the house by about $35,000 about 2 days before Marcia arrived in town, and already had presented 3 offers to the seller before we saw the house. Julie was able to hold them off while we took a day to look at a few more places, which really only served to confirm our decision and give us ideas (we were able to figure out how to move the stairs leading down to the basement from one house, for example.) Even as we were there last night signing the offer contract, 2 other couples came through looking at it. This house was an incredible bargain.
This morning we found out that Marcia's offer was accepted and we have a winter project! At dinner last night we starting making the list of all the things that need to be done, prioritized them, and came up with other ideas. We lined up the home inspection today and will continue driving around to flooring, tiles, cabinet, and bath stores to get inspired. We are challenging ourselves to be creative in renovating this house nicely on a strict budget.
I can't wait to share how this progresses. Marcia and I both needed a project to keep us busy this winter. Call us crazy... we just might be.
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