January 5, 2006

Brookfield, CT. Cape. $369,900. 1600 sq.ft.
Viewed this one the other afternoon. Cute cape in a nice litle neighbourhood up near Candlewood Lake. Someone will no doubt like it as it's ready to go but the kitchen was only 8 x 8 with really no room to expand. Upstairs there were 2 BRs with a jack-and-jill bathroom. A good use of space but I think too small and tight for us - not much closet space. There was a finished basement room downstairs but personally I think that's just not space that you'll use - it needs to be on the main level or upstairs. I have an unfinished basement where I rent now and I pop in and out all the time but it's only 5 steps down so I guess that would be the maximium. it works on mine because it's a split level linear ranch thing.

Found out a little more about the faded green colonial re: orig. asking price, and an offer they had that they rejected. I did a little analysis on $/sq.ft of houses that have sold up there and the going rate is between $188-250 dollars over the past 2 years. These houses were all in mint condition. The house I feel has potential comes in at $200/sq. ft and it needs work - quite a lot of work which kind of reinforces our feeling that it's overpriced and they already dropped it $20,000 from the original asking price. Doing the math you could extrapolate that when renovated it might sell for 240/sq. ft which puts it up at $465,000 which is unlikely as the highest priced sale up there has been $410,000. So Bob and I will go view it Sunday as he hasn't seen it - he may hate it (I'm pretty certain that I am game for more work and renovation projects than him). Also he has some potential change at his work - currently in Manhattan but travelling most of the time but just got offered a job that might have him in the city 3 days/week. So we have to keep that in mind too.

Found a pretty cool design tool for kitchens on ikea.com. You can put in room dimensions and everythign adn spec out a kitchen and it tells you all the stuff you've spec'd and how much it costs. It's kind of fun to get some kitchen ideas that way.