Finally we can officially share the news, now that the conditions of financing and a satisfactory home inspection have been met: last week, on the Dutch Queen’s Day on April 30th, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!! It’s located in the good and beautiful neighbourhood Arnheim Place (didn’t find out yet if there is a connection to the Dutch city Arnhem 😉 ), which is in the south-east end of central Regina, still within the ringroad, close to the Wascana park and a bit more south-east of where we are right now (Broders Annex). Most houses in this neighbourhood are too big and too expensive for us, so we were afraid that we couldn’t afford it, but we got lucky that this house was on the market for a while and nobody wanted it, because it needs a bit of TLC. Well, it’s the type of TLC that we would love to put in a house (painting, cleaning, redoing the floors) if it means we can afford it! Some bigger projects for the future include new furnace (right away, we’ll also put central air in), drainage from water away from the house at the outside (ASAP), adding ventilation to the attic (ASAP), developing the basement, back yard and updating the garage (coming years).
The house is from 1954, it’s 1004 sqft (93 m2) (and just as much basement!!), whole lot size is 5793 sqft (538 m2), not bad, huh? It has a big and bright living room (not as big as in our old house, but big for these bungalows), 3 bedrooms on the main level as well as a kitchen and bathroom. The basement walls have been braced for the most part, there are no major cracks or shifting (the ground “works” quite a bit here in Regina, so minor cracks are normal). And let’s not forget the gorgeous deck in the front!
Thank you to our mortgage broker Don Schick, who got us pre-approved way sooner than expected, and huge thanks go out to the AWESOME pair of realtors we got in touch with when we phoned for a certain house (we saw only 8 in total), Angelo and Jennifer Coppola (585-0444) of the Sutton Group! It immediately clicked, we had some great viewings with Angelo who explained so many things to us, and Jennifer has done some great negotiating to get us a good price on the house! The market is so crazy here that most houses sell for way over listing price (ten-thousands more), but because this one needs some work, she managed to get something off the price instead 🙂
Check out the pictures of the house that we took while we were there for the home inspection and to take some measurements, as you can see the owner still lives there, but possession should be on the 23rd of this month, so pretty soon!!