Cool!
Cool!
Congratulations. Looked around on that realtor website and there are some cheap houses in the Harrisburg area
Congratulations!
John Welsh wrote: Spectacular! Are there any rules near you that the garage can only be a percentage of the house size?
Lower Paxton twp allows up to 30% non-permeable structure for attached and 40% for unattached (or the other way around, I forget). The one thing I have to get creative is that any detached structures have to be in the back yard. With the house set back so far, there isn't much back yard.
But honestly, I'm viewing this as a not-forever home. Right price, right time. Its a step. I will see how I feel about the large 1-car. If I don't like it and I can find the money, I'll expand the garage situation.
OHSCrifle wrote: Is the basement... dry, tall enough to stand in? And congratulations. Great timing. Bonus points for water cooled Buddha.
Basement is tall enough to stand in, but its pretty small; only about 1/2 the house, the rest is crawl space. It was described as having some dampness but they mitigated that with Dri-lock paint. Time will tell. It was completely dry when I was there, so I anticipate maybe a dehumidifier
And yes. Bring on the car=part yard art. Just wait until I close on it. Not sure the current owners would appreciate a cracked Windsor block quite like I would.
Let's see... I could really use some LS1 parts, maybe a 6.0L powerstroke core to rebuild, and a ZF6 trans. If someone is feeling really saucy, I could use an M52 for an excuse to buy an E30 again.
You went for the Bhudda over Pepe, the Little Mule?
In reply to pinchvalve:
"Joan Wilder? THEEEE Joan Wilder?"
I'm glad you were able to stay closer to work. 20 minutes and 5.2 miles isn't walking distance, but its certainly not like living down in York.
Property looks nice, I'd bet its a quiet street. Looks like your garage backs up against a few others, so that'll separate some noise from you wrenching from the neighbors. Only downside is the neighbors house on the corner looks pretty close to your garage.
It'll be interesting to see what you do with it.
Started with a trip to ikea and now you're on Berkeley st. Now that's success.
captdownshift wrote: Started with a trip to ikea and now you're on Berkeley st. Now that's success.
Ikea girl is shopping, too. We're not ready to co-habitate yet, but the idea is already there that one day one of us will move in with the other and we can rent out the second house.
Speaking of Ikea... now that I'm buying a small house, guess where we're planning another roadtrip? 
pheller wrote: I'm glad you were able to stay closer to work. 20 minutes and 5.2 miles isn't walking distance, but its certainly not like living down in York. Property looks nice, I'd bet its a quiet street. Looks like your garage backs up against a few others, so that'll separate some noise from you wrenching from the neighbors. Only downside is the neighbors house on the corner looks pretty close to your garage. It'll be interesting to see what you do with it.
Its a very quiet street. My agent is also a postal carrier and that is his route, so he knows all the neighbors. The guy on the left is elderly and disabled and likes help with things (that could be a cool thing for me) and the guy on the other side is a bit reclusive and keeps his place immaculate. Not sure about the neighbors to the back, but peering over the fence didn't send up any red flags.
The few times I drove from work to the house I came up with 12-14 minutes. Its actually a little quicker through town, but one slow red light and its 15 minutes or more. Either way, it sure beats the 30 minutes from Carlisle.
Going tomorrow morning for inspection. I'll try to get some pics/videos for you all
congrats! Always a great feeling a to have place to call your own.
Wait a minute. Your agent is a mail carrier? This is either absurd or brilliant and I can't figure out which.
secretariata wrote:KyAllroad wrote: Very cool Curtis, having your own place is awesome! (And not to be a buzz killington but my mortgage on a $105K house is $670 a month. Insurance and taxes account for something like half of that. So even paid off it'll cost $300 ish a month to keep my house)Yeah, but don't you live in one the top 10 highest cost of living areas in 'Merica? We pay about $2200/year for taxes & insurance on our place, so less than $200/month...
Lexington Ky has some of the lowest costs in the country for a metropolitan area. And my numbers might be off a bit as to how much taxes and insurance run ( I really was just guessing since I don't have the paperwork in front of me). My point being there is more to a house payment than just the mortgage. 
I looked again at the map
Lets say the Curtis said, "hey, come join me on Berkeley St."
The first thing you would come to is dartMOUTH St. From there you would intersect marbleHEAD St. and if you went down this road rather than Berkeley St you could end up at PEARL(necklace) St.
In reply to KyAllroad:
Yup. Last year taxes on this property were $1600 or so, but PA does things very strangely. School, local, municipal, county, etc taxes are all separate and come on different bills. Some states lump it all together. Some states don't have any.
I plan on not escrowing my taxes and insurance. I get lump sum bonuses during those times so I would rather pay every 6 months and keep the monthly payment lower.
Congratulations! These things can just take a bit of patience to find the right deal.
Well, the deal isn't dead yet, but there is significant termite damage in the floor joists. Like lots. All we can do is ask the listing agent what the sellers want to do and cross fingers.
Also a few kinds of mold in the basement (which is pretty easy to fix. Its not a terrible infestation)
Took some video of the house today.
I'm guessing a gas can will be struck by lightning on berkeley Street in the near future.
In reply to curtis73:
The house looks nice! Hopefully you can come to an agreement about it's issues.
Were the termites on the original disclosure statement (if your state has such thing)?
Now that you have proven the termites and made them aware of the termites do they have to rewrite the disclosure statement?
If yes, they have to rewrite then the seller is going to get knocked for the cost of termites either way.
I say this because the seller might be thinking they'll pass on your offer and find a different buyer who doesn't realize the termites. It might not be that easy for them and this can give you price leverage.
Personally, I once walked on a house deal because the inspector found some pretty significant foundation work had been done. The inspector agreed the work had been done right. It was probably 20 year old work. His advice was that this work was not the reason to buy the house but rather in 10 years when you sell this then 30 year old work will be the reason that no one wants to buy it and or the reason the house will not appreciate in price like other houses would.
Do you want to own a house with a history of termite damage?
How common are termites in your area. Not all that common in my area.
curtis73 wrote: I plan on not escrowing my taxes and insurance. I get lump sum bonuses during those times so I would rather pay every 6 months and keep the monthly payment lower.
I know of a few people who have lost houses because they were so used to the escrow/bank doing the saving for them, they forgot to save up for those taxes. My taxes are a bit more than yours (although fairly low by the standards of the Philly region) and it took some discipline to save up for the $2800 school tax bill that comes due in Sept.
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