EOS Goes House Hunting
Yesterday, in upstate Connecticut, I went to look at three very different houses for sale. Three different towns. Three different architectural styles. Three different lifestyles. Each with items on our wish list.
For a while we have thought we should bail on tax crazy New York and first set our sights to Greenwich, until we realized our pocketbook did not match those lofty sights. Houses there, while gorgeous, are very expensive, but the property tax bill is probably half what it is here in Westchester County, New York.
Since neither of us commutes to an office in the city, and our children are grown and gone, we could base our home search on the house, and not how close it is to transportation or schools. Of course, that might mean that down the road if we sell, others will discard our home for the very reasons we didn’t need to consider!
First and foremost, we found a buyer’s real estate agent, critical today. The listing agent’s sole job is to represent the seller, get the most money for that seller. A buyer’s agent is there to negotiate and be there for you. Pretty important.
House 1:
A 1920′s home on a river, with a dock and a pool. New roof, redone kitchen. Sunroom. Guest house.
Sweeping lawns down to the river.
From the foot of the land, looking up the river.
Pros:
- Close to town, walkable even
- Close to shopping
- Close to I-95
- Private, no neighbors visible
- Big formal rooms downstairs
- Guest house
- Brand new roof
- Four season sunroom
- Beautiful large pool and pool house
Cons:
- Bedrooms upstairs small and close together
- Upstairs needed a rehab – wallpaper, carpeting, some bathroom work
- Kitchen, while just completely gutted and redone, not at all to our taste – neither cabinets, nor counter-tops
- You see the back of the house as you enter the driveway, since, logically, the front faces the river
House 2:
A 1756 Farmhouse, with recent additions, all renovated. Two barns and a line of ten ancient sycamore trees!
If it were to be included in the sale, this alone would clinch the deal for Mr. EOS.
Pros:
- Move-in ready. Spotless. To our taste.
- Top of the line everything, from kitchen to state-of-the art electronic smart house system
- Pumpkin pine paneling in original living room
- Wide board wood floors
- Fabulous sunroom
- Neat third floor suite for visiting children/grandchildren
- Two bedroom apartment in barn
- Long vista over fields
- Conservation land behind, never to be built on
- House set far back from road
Cons:
- Very far away from town, stores, highway
- No usable back yard, hill above back of house might mean water in basement on rainy days
- Old vinyl-lined swimming pool and older clay tennis court, both needing update
- Sycamore trees need annual maintenance as next steward of them. Costly.
- Barns, while gorgeous and drool worthy, would mean hiring a caretaker. Lots of maintenance
- This may sound silly, but mailbox on other side of street, a fairly busy street and a very long driveway. Would really need to teach Dawg to retrieve paper
- Original access road to barns now driveway to property owned by a neighbor so no real way to drive to barns without getting permission from neighbor.
House 3:
Once a 1960s ranch home, rebuilt in the 1980s, added on to as well. Also on a river, with private dock and pool.
Pros:
- Walk to town
- Unobstructed views
- Gorgeous pool with huge pool house, complete with bath and kitchen
- From the real estate adage Location Location Location, this one rates the highest
Cons:
- House not constructed with highest quality materials
- Homeowner skimped on regular maintenance so many things looked old and needing repair
- Sunroom had no heat so had to be closed off during the winter
- Shared driveway and some shared utilities with home below and to the right of this
- Garages a full story below kitchen, meaning taking groceries up a steep staircase or coming in the front
- Adjacent land slated for seven new homes
As I said, each house came with foibles. Care to opine on your favorite?
Two. Two. Two. We’ll come and live in the barn apartment, as long as we can have sheep and chickens. Deal? Gorgeous house. Gorgeous trees.
I’ve been in house three; agree with your assessment. location may be great but if that’s all it has going for it, it should be off the list.
none of my business, but were the three all in the same price ballpark?
As you know, from my passion for my 1812 farmhouse, I love old homes. My pick is definitely No. 1. In my last house hunt, one serious priority was to find a house with a terrible kitchen, so I could (without guilt) gut it and build my kitchen to satisfy my desires. Thus understand your reluctance to remodel a recently remodeled kitchen. However, that disadvantage, in my opinion, pales in comparison to disadvantages with other two.. One of the most significant – sharing property with neighbors can forever be a possible problem. Even if current owner, is amenable and cooperative, they can sell.
Hands down #1! I wish I were you! I love house hunting
I’m going with #1. Doing a kitchen and knocking out a few walls upstairs will be FUN for you! And the views and closeness to town are awesome! (Stay away from the 10 sycamores — and the barn requiring help — sounds like an invitation to a nightmare! How FUN!!!
I meant to ask: are all three houses similar in size – i.e square footage? Same number of bedrooms?
#1, though # 2 is nicer looking.
Austin: yes, all three in the same price range.
Catherine: The Ten Sycamore farmhouse is the largest, by a good 1000 square feet; more bedrooms; more bathrooms too. The other two are similar though. The larger home appeals, for family as they return.
But Betty makes the good point about steering clear of the barn and tree maintenance. $$$.
LA: We thought the same, if we could pick up house two and place it on House 1′s land and location, minus the sycamore trees and barns.
Son likes House 2, and shares Mr EOS’s desire for the cool John Deere! Also the thought of having a barn to work on and store Son’s growing motorcycle-racing collection of bikes trailers, tools, trucks, etc very much pique’s Son’s interest. Hands down Mom House 2! Besides Dawg is smart she’ll learn to fetch newspaper
Echo sentiments of Anonymous above. Do not share. It’s bad enough to share a portion of a driveway but some electrical too? Run.
House three doesn’t even look like its in the same threshold of standards. What did you set as your looking parameters?
I go with House #1. Redo the redone kitchen – at least you know that all the wiring/plumbing is updated – so what you would do is more cosmetic than structural.
Son: I figured that would be your choice. You plan on paying us storage fees????
Jane: We took house three off the list minutes after seeing it. The photo comparison isn’t fair as the house from the back side is far more imposing and therefore making it comparable to the other two. There was too much snow on the ground to go below the house and take a photo back up.
As for parameters: Pretty easy: minimum 4 bedrooms, preferably 5. Pool. Close to town. No major renovation. Guest house or in-law suite, either detached or attached. Close to I-95 to get to RI and NY and to train station.
Each house has a very different vibe. And lifestyle. The one with the barns would make you a slave to the land and outbuildings, unless you chose to afford live-on the grounds help. But it sure seems the best looking of the three and if you say its move in ready, then comes the decision about what you want out of the house as much as what it looks like.
Tough choice. Since you have eliminated #3, how do house one and two rank in terms of possibilities?
Hi,
Oh I love house hunting and going through different houses. Personally I like 1, I agree with others, with the other houses if you have to share anything with a neighbour that could certainly turn into a nightmare.
anonymous: as I told EOS, I’ve been in house 3. the share is complicated by a personal relationship between sharees. Once someone else buys this house, i guess so goes the congenial sharedness. as for doing over a newly redone kitchen, it’s hard to justify the money today, especially if they choose house one and it does need work upstairs. the more money they use in the kitchen, the less for upstairs.
hope you are using Chris!!!!!
Brit: I would have but this is way out of his territory. Two counties north. He wouldn’t know about the area, let alone the houses. I did use him when looking in Greenwich, for sure!!!!!!!!!!!!
They all look nice and if the price is about the same I think you’ve covered all the pros and cons to weigh.
Operating costs might be different because of how well each is insulated and type of heating fuel. I’d want to look at energy expenses.
Maintenance in and out is always a consideration. From snow to leaves to window cleaning, the bigger the property you have, the bigger the cleaning jobs, usually.
I like the second house with the barns because a guy could store a lot of “secret stuff” in there. But I would look closely or ask if there are any water issues in the spring from that hill it’s backed up to, especially if it has a basement.
They all look like fine homes, EOSr. I’m sure you’ll pick the one that fits you guys the best and if all fails, you could come to Detroit and pick up a small inner-city fixer for about three grand with a lovely view of Seven Mile road. The neighborhood is just so-so but you’re close to everything.
Well, just like in HGTV’s House Hunters series, the “decision” music plays now.
Michigan: The problem is that the largest house, the one with the sycamore trees and barns, also has the most incredibly efficient, best, and latest fuel saving devices. The current owner thought of everything. And I mean everything. Water must have been an issue in the basement because he created a series of elaborate french drains to send the water anywhere but the basement. The basement is as high-tech as NASA headquarters so in many ways, the house that one might assume to be the most expensive to heat and maintain, probably is not. All the windows replaced to look original. Wonderfully insulated. He spared no expense.
House One is old school, meaning old furnace, original windows with storms on the front – can you say drafty? I saw no efforts there to modernize the systems.
So while there is no doubt House 2 will require more outside maintenance, leaves, snow plowing, keeping the barns from falling down, the house itself outshines the others 100 fold.
But thanks for the invitation to Detroit. If our federal deficit keeps rising without an effort to curb Obama’s appetite for spending, we might happily call Detroit home.
A randomly arranged list of
Things I Learned The Hard Way:
1) If mature trees are a compelling part of the charm of the place, see the place when the trees are fully leafed out BEFORE you buy it. In the winter, a close-to-dead tree looks the same as a healthy dormant tree.
2) Even if you’re willing to deal with logistical inconveniences–e.g., not convenient to town, or train station, or I-95, or any place to buy a quart of milk at 9:30 on a Tuesday night–don’t forget to think about establishing a local social life as a newbie. Will you be too isolated to have any naturally-occurring opportunities to get to know your neighbors? Are there local organizations or causes you’ll be interested in?
3) Small bedrooms aren’t bad when the other parts of the house are spacious. Really.
4) Think carefully about what amenities you care most about. For example, I recollect you got rid of your pool in Bedford … is it important to have one in your new place? BTW,what are the garage arrangements in these three candidates? And, how much do you care about having a tennis court? And, how much barn-type storage do you need? Tha sort of stuff.
I know you are an old hand when it comes to houses, so I will cease and desist now!
Those are the exact things we are talking about!
The pool on the wish list does seem like an oxymoron. And being in RI for the summer adds more reason NOT to have a pool again. I like it for exercise and had the pool here been sited well or worth redoing, it might not have been buried.
The social aspect falls to my side of the to-do list. But, our core group of friends lives all over the place already so I figure meeting new people can happen slowly.
Good suggestion about the trees. If we bought the farm with the sycamores and we didn’t tend to them as well as they are now, I can see the headline. NEW YORKERS MOVE IN AND KILL HISTORIC TREES!
Still lots more to think about and probably lots more houses to see. Thanks for all the good advice.
Thanks for including us in your house hunting.
When I read that house #2 was a 1756 Farmhouse I fell in love with it. We in the US so rarely get offered the chance to live in something older than 20 years let alone 250 years!
But I’d run away from a house that has water in the basement …
I think Betty just above me gave really brilliant advice. I never thought of checking out the trees when the leaves are out.
Would you consider looking for a beautiful piece of land and tearing down an existing house that doesn’t quite cut the mustard and building a new one that works for you? Or, an otherwise perfect but too small a house and creating the best barn with attached living quarters in the world?
There was a company which took apart old houses, numbered the parts, stored them and resold them to folk who wanted an old house in a new location. I always thought that was pretty neat. Put in all new guts, add loads of insulation and there you are!
Any way you slice it, location still matters a great deal.
Swanton: during our first look in Greenwich, we found a parcel of land with an abandoned house and contemplated that very idea. Mr. EOS is an amateur builder and loves moosing through salvage yards and putting old parts in a new house (some of which we are doing in the Carriage House build in RI now). Philosophically, the idea is great. But having been there done that, and doing that now, building takes alot more patience than I have now. I’d like to move right in. We’ve renovated/added on every home we’ve owned. Some more successfully than others. So that’s why, house #1, even though it is an ideal location, makes us balk. Leaning toward house #2, despite its farther out location.
House 2 talks to me. It has character, solid bones, gorgeous setting and barns for stuff. If that house has been around for 250 years, it has gone through a lot more than anything the EOS family is going to throw at it.
A state of the art house plunked into a mid 18th century building is cool. Given a choice between restoring the pool or the tennis court, my vote would be for the tennis court. Of course, you can enjoy a swim alone but it’s tough to return your own serve….
See what else your buyers agent comes up with. It’s only January.
Swanton: I find my assessment that the tennis court is old and clay was wrong. Agent informed me it has a nice no-maintenance new surface. That leaves the vinyl lined pool.
I was sent some spring and summer time photos of the grounds. Gorgeously planted with perennials. In other words,
House 2 hasn’t left my mind since seeing it.