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My First House!


zombi
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Hello everyone!

 

I finally received the news today that I have a finalized closing date for my new, first house!

 

My wife and I have been searching since November for our first home. We've been renting a house from a family member for about 4 years now, but this relative was ready to sell. We were given a time frame to find a new place or we may have to move into an apartment or even back with our parents. Things were looking rough as we lost out on 3 homes that we put offers on because houses in this area are in VERY high demand with extremely low inventory. The improving housing market also hurt us because this area is turning into a total sellers market now, with home values skyrocketing.

 

Luckily, although I feel bad saying that, a distant relative passed away and left a house to his children. These relatives knew that we were looking and offered us the first take on the house. The house turned out to be in a nicer area than we could normally afford and we were given a deal that was difficult to refuse (about $15k less than market-value). We liked the house, accepted to deal, and have since finished up just about all of the paperwork.

 

Now that the closing date is three weeks from tomorrow, things are going to get quite busy for me. I have to spend time packing up all of my current stuff in this house as well as do things (paint, tare out carpeting, etc.) to the new house, because we got a key early for this new place.

 

We are very exited as we finally have some stability in our lives as far as our housing situation is concerned. It's obviously a big step and accomplishment to get to this point in our lives to be able to do this together. Needless to say, this is going to cause me to be tied up with other priorities for a little while and I may be absent for longer periods that I'd like, but I'll still definitely be around.

 

I'll surely update this thread with pics and what not as this whole process moves along.

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You guys live in Detroit? Whats it like?

 

Eh, most people outside of Michigan think I live "in Detroit" but it's truly a suburb about 35 minutes northeast of the city limit. I work in Detroit, though right near Metro Airport.

 

There are a few areas that are perfectly safe. A lot of the city is as run down as the media portrays it. Beautiful old homes that are along the highway are boarded up, burned to a crisp, etc. It's not unusual and doesn't even phase drivers along I-94 to see a column of smoke in the air rising over the freeway from a burning house. It doesn't happen often but when it does, we just go "oh, ok" and keep driving. It's truly sad, but the surrounding suburbs are doing OK to just fine.

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Eh, most people outside of Michigan think I live "in Detroit" but it's truly a suburb about 35 minutes northeast of the city limit. I work in Detroit, though right near Metro Airport.

 

There are a few areas that are perfectly safe. A lot of the city is as run down as the media portrays it. Beautiful old homes that are along the highway are boarded up, burned to a crisp, etc. It's not unusual and doesn't even phase drivers along I-94 to see a column of smoke in the air rising over the freeway from a burning house. It doesn't happen often but when it does, we just go "oh, ok" and keep driving. It's truly sad, but the surrounding suburbs are doing OK to just fine.

 

I'm from the U.P. but my family and I make 2 trips a year to Detroit to go to Lions games and I must admit, it was shocking the first time I went down there. After the 3rd or 4th trip it just became the norm. Hell, that's how we know we are in the city limits... Look for a boarded up house and a $50k escalade parked out front.

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Eh, most people outside of Michigan think I live "in Detroit" but it's truly a suburb about 35 minutes northeast of the city limit. I work in Detroit, though right near Metro Airport.

 

There are a few areas that are perfectly safe. A lot of the city is as run down as the media portrays it. Beautiful old homes that are along the highway are boarded up, burned to a crisp, etc. It's not unusual and doesn't even phase drivers along I-94 to see a column of smoke in the air rising over the freeway from a burning house. It doesn't happen often but when it does, we just go "oh, ok" and keep driving. It's truly sad, but the surrounding suburbs are doing OK to just fine.

 

Well said. Detroit in some ways is exactly how the media portrays it, and in other ways it is much different. It is certainly not a "war zone" in every area. Like most major cities, there are good areas and there are bad ones. Detroit just has a much larger "bad" area. Personally, there are many parts of the city that I go to where I feel perfectly safe. There are many fun and beautiful places to go.

 

But yeah, it's pretty rare that someone who says they live in Detroit actually lives there.

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The work begins...

 

Starting with the backyard (because they still need to get their crap out of the inside of the house).

 

Before and after picture, after only a couple hours of work...

 

before_after_1_sm_zps7988b5d5.jpg

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