After years of saving for a deposit and the help of Chi, I made the biggest purchase of my life to date. It has always been a dream to own a house and in 2017, I finally became a homeowner!

The search

With Chi moving in, we quickly outgrew my tiny 450 sq. ft apartment and we were committed to buying a place in Seattle. Whether for short or long term, we knew it would be a good investment.

As our search progressed over 2 months, our wish list matured to a single-family home with a good walk score. Our strategy in Seattle’s competitive market was to find a imperfect house to design and renovate. We didn’t want a move-in ready home… we wanted a home with potential —a home I can design and Chi can build.

We made two offers before submitting our winning offer. Our first offer was outbid by 20 others and the winning bid was over $160k asking price! Our second offer was outbid by a cash offer without any contingencies. While both times was disappointing, I’m glad we lost because our new home has better layout, less renovation work and located in a great neighbourhood. 

I honestly didn’t expect our offer to be accepted because we were only offering asking price. Chi was adamant on waiving inspection and that’s what made our offer the strongest. It was risky, but Chi and our real estate agent, Paul Herbord didn’t see foundation issues. The biggest deterrent of offers, besides the dirty condition was the odor… It wasn’t mold, cigarette smoke or dogs but something sour or pet-like. Regardless, Chi was confident we could get rid of it. We beat two other offers and Paul said we snagged the best deal of the year (huge sweat equity potential).

Our home

Our 1975 bungalow/rambler home is dirty, smelly and gross… but the layout and bones were solid. What matter most was the neighborhood —Greenwood/Ballard is highly desirable with a high walk score of 82/100.

The home is our ideal size of 1250 sq. ft with a 390 sq. ft garage. The garage is lined with filthy orange carpet and we suspect pets or rodents were living here. Disgusting.

Our living room, dining room and kitchen are close together and knocking down one wall will easily open the space. The living room featured a dusty wood burning fireplace.

The three bedrooms are all good-sized including a large master and a ensuite bathroom. The walls were covered in cobwebs and dirt. I can’t wait to sand it off. 

The front and backyard is not too small or too intimidatingly large. It needs maintenance and landscaping… but offers exotic plants, fruit trees, and a small man-made pond. It looked like someone heavily invested in this yard at one point in time. 

We have a lot of work ahead of us both interior and exterior of the house but we know it’s going to be worth it. We aren’t planning to move in until the end of January so we have time to bring into livable conditions.