Chad - that looks like quite a project!! My first house was built in 1915 (I bought it in 1988). I paid $54,000 for it. I won't get into the full story, but the day after closing, a pipe burst in the unoccupied house and my move in was delayed by 3.5 months during the "restoration". Long story short - $28k damage to my $54k house!! Good news was that I had "replacement cost" on my homeowner's policy and most of the remodeling/updating that I was planning on doing over my first 5 years of ownership were taken care of before I moved in!!
Old houses are really cool and full of charm but they can be money pits. Be careful that you don't end up with a house that you've invested $100k into that's located in a neighborhood of $40k homes. I sold that first house in '96 for $75k, so I "made" $21k in 8 years. It was the first house on the street to break a $70k selling price. A year after I moved, the guy next door to me sold and moved as well. He had also done a lot to his house - we were basically the catalysts for the "neighborhood improvement program". I drove through that neighborhood a month or so ago and it's really gone downhill. My old house would probably only fetch around $60k now. Hopefully your restoration project is the catalyst for your own neighbors to keep things nice.
After I signed the contract and got to looking at the house more closely a month later I was thinking whether or not I made a good choice on buying the house. But then I got to thinking well I could be spending that $250.00 a month on a house or apartment and just
Renting and not eventually owning so after thinking of it that way I figured at least it'd be something I'd own eventually and not just throwing money at rent.
The guy said a lot of people looked at the house and decided against it since it was in need of serious remodeling.
I figured it'd be a great starter "real home for me" as I've been living in a mobile home that is gonna be tore down probably this summer "it was given to me" the walls on it are rotted as well and not worth repairing and I really wanted out of the town I was living in.
And I figured a 10 year lease wasn't so bad. Even if my credit was good I didn't want to get into a huge debt or mortgage and buy more house than I could afford.
It was real exciting for me to sign that first lease/contract on my first house.
Also, I don't know what's wrong with your credit, but whatever it is, GET IT FIXED NOW!! Pay off your credit cards, take care of old debts, etc. And once you have stuff paid off, don't run up your cards or buy stuff you can't afford again. Having good credit will help you much more than you can imagine right now. And, don't forget to save just a little bit of each paycheck in an account that you can't/won't touch until you retire. You'll thank me for this advice in 30 years!!
What ruined my credit is I signed some forms for some credit cards when I was young "I think I was 16" I was stupid then and signed the forms figuring they would deny me a credit cards as I said I had no job, no income or anything.
A few weeks later those credit cards showed up in the mail. I should have not activated them and used them. But I did. I had one with $1,000.00 limit and one with $500.00 limit and maxed them both out. "Stupid mistake" and I regret it everyday.
Though I did spend some of it on groceries for my family and I. But most of it I went spending it like I was rich. That was a stupid mistake as I didn't have the money to pay it off. "And neither did my parents" and I wasn't expecting them too.
When I did have the money I did at least pay some on it. But I didn't have enough income to pay them off.
For the young folks out there "a quote from the song" back when I knew it all. "Credit cards don't mean you're rich and if you can't pay it back don't use it. It will screw up your credit.
I've been trying to get those paid off and hopefully I'll have them paid off soon.
My dad had bad credit before too and buying a car from this dealer who accepts bad credit and by making timely payments really helped his credit score. :cool2:
