Apr
12
Perfect time to buy a house in Michigan…or so they say
Posted by admin at 21:18 | Filed In Everyday Life, Shopping Deals | Add a Comment
Before I get to the actual house buying story, here’s some personal data about myself:
- I’m 24 years old
- I live at home with my (single) mom and my younger sister
- I’m currently employed full time and earn a decent amount of money
- I don’t have much debt. I’m leasing a car and have about $300 on one of my credit cards
- I have “Excellent” credit (as of last week).
When I got my first real job as a web designer in the Detroit area, I was just barely 21 years old. I fought to get that job and thanks to a few good people who believed in me, I got it. After about a year, I got laid-off as did some of my co-workers. Soon after, I started contracting at another company where I’m now a full-fledged employee for almost 2 years. Although my mom’s house (which is not in such a good area of metro Detroit) has plenty of room for the three of us, I always wanted to be on my own. I wanted to start my own life, in my own place, for better or for worse. I wanted to make that goal by the time I turned 25.
I will be 25 years old next month.
It was a mere coincidence that I started to look for my new place, but that’s when I also realized how bad the housing market is in Michigan. It definitely is going my favor, but many are suffering because of it. In the past three months, I’ve been looking intensively (online) for apartment-to-condo conversions in the Metro Detroit area because they just seem so cheap. I was also looking for other types of condos and even looked at a few houses. Now, why buy a condo and not a house?
Like most people, I know that buying a house is a better decision as far resale value, the freedom, the privacy, and many other things go. However, the reason I am not looking for a house is because by buying a condominium, not only is it cheaper, but it’s maintenance free. Well, for the most part. However, that is not my main reason. The real reason is because I could pay it off relatively quickly and give it to my mom. Hopefully, 10 years from now things will be better and we’ll be able to sell her house - whether we earn something on it or not. That way I have her taken care of. She never wanted to live in a house anyway so apartment/condo living would be perfect for her.
So, today I went and looked at my first two choices. They’re both townhouses in the Sterling Heights area; they’re under $50,000 and have two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Where else could you get something like that for under $50K? I don’t know, but if you do, please do let me know 
My realtor (who seems really cool and straight-forward) wasn’t very well organized today so I ended up getting inside of either of these places (they gave him the wrong combinations for the lock boxes). The only thing I managed to do is take a few pictures of the exterior and peek through the windows. One of the reasons these two townhouses are this cheap is partially because they’re bank re-pos.
All in all, my first day of “looking” didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but I’m very, very excited, especially now that I saw these two. The red, brick townhouse is the one I liked better and I hope that once I’m able to get it, that I like it. Here are some photos of the “red” house. I won’t be posting photos of the other one this time.
The front of the “red” townhouse
The back of the “red” townhouse. It has a small yard area that’s open to the common lawn. Not bad, I really don’t need more than that. Just enough to fit my BBQ grill
Another shot of the frontal exterior of the house. The living space is about 1100 square feet. It has two bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 bathrooms and my truck still looks bigger than it. Check out the nasty sky… Of all the beautiful sunny days we had over the past week or so, I got to take pictures on this dark, gloomy day…pffff!