Unutterably Silly So what are you doing RIGHT NOW?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

The first one my sister didn't like, not sure why. The second one we did both like, until my sister saw how close it was to the highway.

RATS, foiled again.

Yesterday we went to IJselstein to look at a house. My sister has hired a real estate agent to help with buying a house and he was there. I liked the house, though the downstairs was dark. Partially because of the trees in front, but also because of the colours used to decorate the room (greens and greys) and some dark furniture. I loved the attic and the garden was a nice size. There was a storage unit behind the garden, great for bikes and tools. My sisters realtor didn't think the house would sell for much over asking price.

Yeah, I'd have ye olden buckets of primer and paint out PDQ. That green, for me, would have to GO.

However, the neighbourhood is working class, with a mixture of ethnicities, very similar to the neighbourhood my sister lives in now. The house is on the edge of the section of the neighbourhood of houses build in the 1970s and apartment building (from the front you look out on those). This makes my sister hesitate. But because of the neighbourhood you get a better price.

So...does this mean it's moving downward in value? In neighborhoods with changing demographics, yes, that can be a bit of a crapshoot.

We went into the old center of IJselstein. It's small (one street), but it's got all the basics. There's a supermarket almost around the corner.

After I had to make 3 U-Turns to get to the grocery today, for one lousy thing on my way home, BOY that sounds good!!!

The house in De Meern we are going to see next week is similar in size, but €50,000 more and my sister's realtor said that location usually means you have to overbid by 10%, which means it's probably out of our price range. But she still has to talk to her mortgage person, so we'll have to wait and see.

Do we have a URL for this one? De Meern?

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yeah, I'd have ye olden buckets of primer and paint out PDQ. That green, for me, would have to GO.

<snip>

Do we have a URL for this one? De Meern?

Hitch

The pictures didn't show the dark dark green on the wall opposite the couch. That would take a whole lot of primer to get rid of. My sister's apartment had a purple wall in the living room when she bought it. It took many buckets of primer to get rid of it.

The De Meern house, it's very white (except one bedroom), but it's easier to bring colour into a room/house than get rid of colour.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

The pictures didn't show the dark dark green on the wall opposite the couch. That would take a whole lot of primer to get rid of. My sister's apartment had a purple wall in the living room when she bought it. It took many buckets of primer to get rid of it.

The De Meern house, it's very white (except one bedroom), but it's easier to bring colour into a room/house than get rid of colour.

I Like that one too (De Meern) and it has a lot of room for you two to make it your own. Very light...easy to customize in numerous ways. :-)

Hitch

[astrangerhere]

For the non-house-hunting among us... We're having a board game day. Playing a lot of horror themed games for Halloween season.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

For the non-house-hunting among us... We're having a board game day. Playing a lot of horror themed games for Halloween season.

I'm not, in fact, house-hunting; I'm haunting those who ARE house-hunting. A time-honored and respectable profession. :-)

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

For the non-house-hunting among us... We're having a board game day. Playing a lot of horror themed games for Halloween season.

Have you got any good suggestion? I love everything horror and I love playing board games, so combining the two will be fun.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Have you got any good suggestion? I love everything horror and I love playing board games, so combining the two will be fun.

We played:

Arkham Horror the card game
Cthulhu Death May Die
Pandemic Cthulhu
Horrified
The Night Cage
Castle Party

Horrified and Castle party are probably the most accessible and cheapest. I believe Horrified is sold at Target here in the US, but any self-respecting game store would have it.

[Rumpelteazer]

Yesterday my sister and I went to view this house. And she loved it, it was the first house we viewed that just worked for her. It's very spacious, it's got a nice garden and I really liked the attic.

The fuse box needs to be changed, since it's got the older style porcelain fuses (which I know are hard to get), but my father can do that. We would also replace the central heating boiler, since it from 2014 and the government is currently planning on banning those after 2024, so we would want to get a new one before that. It's almost ready to move in; the solid oak parquet flooring needs to be sanded and refinished and the wall need to be painted, but that's it.

The only downside is that you can hear the highway. But it's a constant white noise, I think after a while you won't hear it. It's less annoying than a busy street nearby where you can hear each individual car driving by.

The neighbourhood is nice. A small shopping area is a 5 minute walk away. They've got the things you need daily (2 supermarkets, butcher, cheese store, bakery, book store, etc).

My sister's going to send some emails and make some calls today and is going to put in an offer. All offers need to be in before 3 pm on Friday, there will be no bidding war; the highest bidder gets to buy it.

So, fingers crossed.

We still have a viewing booked for next Wednesday to see this house. Which is also great, it needs more work, but that's within the budget. However, it's in a not so good neighbourhood (on the edge of it, but still), which explains the price.

[DNSB]

Good luck!

But what will we do without the soap opera of hunting a new home?

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Good luck!

But what will we do without the soap opera of hunting a new home?

Bold of you to assume the conversation won't just turn to furnishing and decorating said new house.

[Rumpelteazer]

Unfortunately my sister's offer wasn't enough. The house was for sale at €485,000. My sister offered €505,000. There were four offers over hers, the winning offer was more than €20,000. So the search goes on.

We do know that De Meern is at the top of our list now. On Wednesday we're going to Gouda, but we're also going to discuss our search area on Sunday. We'll probably narrow it down and places like Gouda and Amersfoort are out.

The furnishing I'll leave mostly to my sister, our tastes our similar and she's got ideas. I'll deal with my room and probably the craft room (which will mostly be Ikea). I just hope we get a house where not much needs to be done in terms of upgrading, because that might be a soap with all the difficulties in getting materials (luckily we know trustworthy builders).

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Unfortunately my sister's offer wasn't enough. The house was for sale at €485,000. My sister offered €505,000. There were four offers over hers, the winning offer was more than €20,000. So the search goes on.

We do know that De Meern is at the top of our list now. On Wednesday we're going to Gouda, but we're also going to discuss our search area on Sunday. We'll probably narrow it down and places like Gouda and Amersfoort are out.

The furnishing I'll leave mostly to my sister, our tastes our similar and she's got ideas. I'll deal with my room and probably the craft room (which will mostly be Ikea). I just hope we get a house where not much needs to be done in terms of upgrading, because that might be a soap with all the difficulties in getting materials (luckily, we know trustworthy builders).

Well, your housing market is surely hot. I had seen that house, as it happens and I'd thought two things--that your sister would love it, due to how light it was but that the BR's were a bit smallish so I was surprised when you said she loved it; (hey, we all compromise on houses!).

Back to the HouseHunt! Keeps me off the streets. LOL

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Unfortunately my sister's offer wasn't enough. The house was for sale at €485,000. My sister offered €505,000. There were four offers over hers, the winning offer was more than €20,000. So the search goes on.

We do know that De Meern is at the top of our list now. On Wednesday we're going to Gouda, but we're also going to discuss our search area on Sunday. We'll probably narrow it down and places like Gouda and Amersfoort are out.

snippage

https://www.funda.nl/koop/de-meern/h...-15/#overzicht ?

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

https://www.funda.nl/koop/de-meern/h...-15/#overzicht ?

Hitch

That's a great one, it's under offer though.

The bedrooms of the one we didn't get were spacious, more spacious than most other houses we've seen. I think my sister needs a few days before she's ready to go house hunting again. She was really bummed she didn't get it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

That's a great one, it's under offer though.

The bedrooms of the one we didn't get were spacious, more spacious than most other houses we've seen. I think my sister needs a few days before she's ready to go house hunting again. She was really bummed she didn't get it.

I do want to say, just so nobody here thinks I'm a loon, that I triple-checked that house THREE TIMES, before I pasted the link here, to make sure it wasn't, in that five minutes, under offer, and it wasn't. Yes, yup yup, it is now and I'm not surprised. Dang.

Bugger, this is like Ye Olden Days, back when EBay was brand-new and people used to sit around and snipe at auction ends...lol.

Hitch