Fell on the same day that Nebraska jumped off the Titanic - er what will soon be the late, great Big 12 - for the Big 10. My childhood home (not the true childhood home, it was the 2nd house we lived in, but its the one we moved to when I was 5 in 1966) sold yesterday. The new owner is a house flipper that plans to do a great deal of remodeling and replace the garage that fell down many years ago with a new two car garage. A bit of urban re-homesteading, which is nice.
In the process of deciding what to do with the place I got a lot of advice, and really, the only logical choice was to sell to a flipper. My parents - actually Dad - did very little to the place other than the absolute maintenance that had to be done - roof, new windows, ac/heat aside from ripping off the wallpaper in '66 and installing carpet over the hardwood floors (which, of course, these days, are highly prized, especially in a house built in the 1940s), painting the interior (one time - I kid thee not) after removing the wallpaper, and ripping out the old kitchen in the 1970s and remodeling it.
To be fair, that's not entirely accurate as the "only" things... he put paneling in the big basement room downstairs that eventually ended up being a storage room for all sorts of sundry crap (with the emphasis on the bulk of it being crap - thank you very much A OK Antiques for doing the estate sale and getting that stuff out of there), he put a film editing bench in the basement (where he and some of his friends did a few highlight films for the Iowa State Girls Athletic Association Girls' Basketball Tournament in the 1970s - before videotape killed 16mm film), and did a very minor remodel on the downstairs bathroom (changed the floor linoleum and tiled the walls).
This may sound like a lot... but for the last decade nothing was done. There were settling cracks in the plaster (gotta love real plaster walls) that were upstairs, the upstairs bathroom was to the point it was needing a remodel, and the entire house needed painting inside and out. There was some dry rot on the outside window sills, and more than likely the new owner will rip out the bushes out front as they got so overgrown that if you trim them back, they'll just be sticks. It will be interesting to see the house listing - this is assuming the flipper doesn't do a custom remodel job and sell it direct to someone - once the house is ready to go on the market. Even though its raining in Des Moines today, I would not be surprised if someone isn't busy ripping carpet out of it right now (although I'll bet they fix the plaster cracks and cosmetics - perhaps even paint the walls - before they rip the carpet and refinish the floors... that would make a lot of sense (and if he's remodeling bathroom(s) I wouldn't pull the carpet off of the stairs until the upstairs bathroom was finished).
Anyway, I would have had to sink at least 20-30K into the place to make it sellable for a bank loan, and try to do the remodel remotely from California is probably not high on the List of Good Ideas. I sold it in as-is condition, got a fair price, and the flipper should make a good profit. My only regret is that I wish my parents would have taken better care of their house than they did - because they *could* have but chose not to do so, but what's done is done.
Anyway, I would have had to sink at least 20-30K into the place to make it sellable for a bank loan, and try to do the remodel remotely from California is probably not high on the List of Good Ideas. I sold it in as-is condition, got a fair price, and the flipper should make a good profit. My only regret is that I wish my parents would have taken better care of their house than they did - because they *could* have but chose not to do so, but what's done is done.
Three weeks from today, Davis and Meredith will be here! This, of course, assumes that the standby flight schedule cooperates. I planted the Disneyland hook yesterday. As it stands now, they're here for 3 weeks, while their summer school at St. Mary's is on, but I offered to their mother that I would take them to Southern California for a few days if she wants to pick them up in LA (more flight choices - 4 airports vs. 1 here)... I'd have them stay another week, and take them down either Tuesday or Wednesday to SoCal, we'd get a 3 or 4 day park pass, and also hit the beach. I'll probably rent a car and drive us down... it is a long ways to LA - 8 hours - but by the time you get to the airport - at least an hour ahead, fly, get your luggage, rental car, etc. its a lot easier to fly in some aspects.
I spoke to both of them about it yesterday... Meredith has re-discovered email and I got about 20 replies last night and this morning. Of course, they're jacked about the idea of going to Disneyland LOL - I'll make sure we do it right, you only go to Disneyland for the first time as a child once, and while I'm not going to freak out if things aren't "perfect" I want it to be a good experience for them.
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