If you want to jump ahead to the photos of our new house, go here.
Months before the wedding, we'd discussed selling our current house and finding something larger in anticipation that we'll have kids someday and the 2 bedrooms we currently have just aren't going to cut it. We'd thought about moving out to Oakbank but the commute is too long. Then we thought about going to East St Paul, but the houses are too expensive. Then it was St Andrews, but it tends to flood in the spring. We're starting to sound like Goldilocks eh? Too soft, too hard, just right.... We eventually agreed on the Kildonans and Transcona so we looked online at the MLS listings and Comfree for places within our price range that met our criteria (3+ bedrooms, 1.5+ bathrooms, double garage, quiet street) and went to some open houses. I won't go into too much detail, but some of the houses had some "unique" odors associated with them. Mildew, curry, and dog pee in some of them. We fell in love with a house on Alberhill and met with the seller's agent and had him draw up an offer to purchase, but unfortunately, lost the bid by $13,000.
Undeterred, we went back online and I found one on Kijiji.com that had had an open house the weekend before. We called them and arranged a meeting with the sellers to tour the house. It was 7:00 at night and on a street only blocks from his parents house (and where an ex-gf from high school lived). The online photos were truly terrible and we were both completely unmotivated to go see it and had convinced ourselves that it'd be another awful place. But, after touring through it for a half hour, we were absolutely in love! It doesn't photograph very well so please don't judge it from the slide show. It's a 4 bedroom (3 upstairs, 1 basement), large kitchen with newer KitchenCraft cupboards, new laminate flooring, A DINING ROOM, a fireplace, 1 full and 2 half bathrooms, and a walk-in closet in the master bedroom. House is 15 years old and a former Kensington show-home and the current owners are our age and we got along with them really well. While we were touring through, another couple came over to look at it, which was particularly awkward because we were filling out the offer to purchase and the deposit cheque! We discussed the details with the sellers and they called the other couple to find out how interested they were. They weren't seriously intersted so we got the house for $7k over asking price.
We finished the offer to purchase with the caveat that our lawyers would have to approve the offer, which is where things went off the rails. Our lawyer and their lawyer had communications problems but after 3 days of relentless phone calls and meetings, everything was approved and the house is ours!
We take possession on Feb 26th and aside from wanting to repaint the master bedroom and the second bedroom (the one with the exercise equipment), there's nothing much for us to do except sell this place. We're going to try doing it ourselves since it worked so well already. We're listing for $150,000 with possession after March 1st, so if you know anyone that's interested in a 2-bedroom, 1 bathroom, 750sq. ft. house in the West End near Polo Park with 2 parking spots, new eaves, new windows, new shingles, new insulation, new a/c, new monitored alarm, includes fridge and dishwasher, shed, patio, landscaped with perennial gardens and AMAZING neighbours on either side, give us a call!!