Ithaca house hunting/buying frustration: anyone else in the same boat? (Horseheads: sales, real estate)

[elmwood]

I'm looking for a house in what I think is a reasonable price range - $220K or so, the median home price in Tompkins County. I'm looking in an area within a 10-15 minute drive of downtown Ithaca (I work downtown, my GF in the West Hill area), and prefer a neighborhood setting (not a lot subdivided from a farm along a long state/county/rural road). However, what I'm finding out there is quite disappointing. Search for something in the median price range in any other city in the US, and there's a lot of decent options. In Ithaca, though, it's mostly:

* Functionally obsolete, and often filthy L-shaped/farmhouse-style houses in the city, with awkward floorplans (main bathroom off the kitchen, bedroom off of s bedroom off of the living room, etc), extremely low ceilings, 1930s-1960s kitchens, gravel/dirt driveways, no garages, "natural" landscaping, etc. The amount of work just to bring such houses up to basic "builder spec" level -- not even approaching HGTV House Hunters first time picky buyer level -- would bankrupt me. (How do you even raise a 6.5' - 7' cieling, anyhow?)

* Very small condos (<1000 square feet, mostly 2 br/1ba).

* In outlying areas within reasonable commuting distance, very dated ranch houses, or basic, boxy modular houses.

* Decent houses in remote rural areas, beyond a reasonable commuting distance. Also, such communities are often unzoned; there's no guarantee that your neighbor will put a heavy equipment storage yard or old singlewide on their lot.

I'm told most "good houses" in the $200-$240K range aren't on the MLS; there's a lot of pocket listings, private sales within social circles, and the like - things I'm not privy to. There's no spec housing; almost everything is custom or pay-now-build-later. Home builders here either do only high end construction or basic doublewide-like modulars; nobody does anything in the middle. We're too well off to qualify for INHS housing.

I've spoken to a couple of real estate agents who claim they have access to decent houses, but I still get shown the same weird city houses, houses on major roads, basic modulars in Dryden, old lady time capsules in Lansing, and cramped 2 br/1 ba units in Commonland and Eastwood Commons.

Anyone else facing the same situation? How did you work around it, without resigning yourself to a long commute from Cortland or Horseheads? Any homebuilders in Ithaca that do custom non-modular middle end?

[ckhthankgod]

Have you tried Trumansburg, Groton and Newfield?

What about something like this?: DRYDEN Real Estate - 17 GOODRICH WAY, DRYDEN, NY, 13053

Or this?: DRYDEN Real Estate - 10 PENNY LANE, DRYDEN, NY, 13053

Are you looking strictly for a newer home? I ask, because could something like this work?; GROTON Real Estate - 221 SPRING STREET, GROTON, NY, 13073

[Wells5]

" Any homebuilders in Ithaca that do custom non-modular middle end?"

Fine Line Homes, which has an office and showroom in Sayre, PA does a lot of building in Thompkins County. They give you the biggest bang for the buck. Brookside Homes, which has an office and showroom in Mansfield, PA also builds in NYS and gives good value. Their homes are more stylish than Fine Line's. Both use Amish craftsmen from framing to finish.

[tchemgrrl]

For the homebuilding, I have some friends that just went through this and dealt with the sticker shock by becoming their own contractors and doing a lot of the smaller projects themselves. It saved them a considerable bundle. If you decide to build, it's a way to go.

We were in pretty much your exact spot 3 years ago when we were looking, price range, preferences, and all. I heard the same thing about house buying being a who-you-know situation. What we found is that decent houses don't go for more, they just go faster. Like, on and off the market in 12 hours fast. Many but not all of these houses were going to people who knew the sellers, other people were just fast and/or lucky. (Friends of ours got their house by being around on Christmas; I think the family put it on the market on the 23rd and by New Year's my friends were homeowners.) So be ready to jump quickly. And get picky about what you're looking at; if you don't want a condo, don't look at them. We were looking at places with a newborn in tow and got really picky really fast. We also had two offers on houses fall through before getting the third one.

We ended up in the Northeast area, and I would recommend it to you. The prices are not so high, the construction is reasonable, the traffic's not bad, the houses are not the most charming but are way better than a modified doublewide. I still kind of regret that we're not downtown but I also really like my house. My mom has since moved to West Hill which has some similar things going for it (although a lot of the houses are on busy streets.)

[elmwood]

Originally Posted by ckhthankgod

Have you tried Trumansburg, Groton and Newfield?

Not much in Trumansburg. A nice 1920s-era house in town, but only one bathroom. There's a lot of that around here; 4-5 bedrooms, 1 bath.

Newfield - the vast majority of housing is on acreage lots on long state/county/town roads, outside of a neighborhood setting. A good deal of what I've seen there are very basic modulars, log cabin-like houses, 1880s farmhouses with low ceilings, etc. Newfield also doesn't have zoning; lots of trailers, home-based businesses like auto mechanics and auto body shops, etc., and no guarantees you won't end up with such things as next door neighbors. Much of Newfield doesn't have wired broadband Internet.

Groton: like Newfield, it's mostly rural acreage lots. It's a long commute to downtown Ithaca, and even longer to CMC. We're not country folks or homesteaders; no desire to move back to the land, grow our own food, raise chickens, not have neighbors, etc. A lot of Groton has no wired broadband Internet.

Dryden: okay if it's a subdivision setting closer to Ithaca. GF flat out refuses a commute from Dryden Village; otherwise 10 Penny Lane would be ideal.

TL/DR: basically, we're looking for what would be a nice, normal, not rustic house in any other part of the country, at around what's supposed to be the average price for a house in Tompkins County, in a setting where we would have neighbors, on a road that isn't an arterial, in a location that isn't too remote. I get the feeling that's a unicorn around here.

We're selective, but we're not like the annoying buyers on HGTV House Hunters who turn their noses up at the wrong shade of granite countertops. I don't think not wanting a 1930s kitchen with the main bathroom off of it isn't that unreasonable. It seems like in Ithaca, buyers are more tolerant of, or even tend to prefer oddball houses that, anywhere else, would sit on the market for years. Thus, there's no incentive for most homeowners to make improvements that would be considered "normal" in the rest of the country.

Originally Posted by wells5

Fine Line Homes, which has an office and showroom in Sayre, PA does a lot of building in Thompkins County. They give you the biggest bang for the buck. Brookside Homes, which has an office and showroom in Mansfield, PA also builds in NYS and gives good value. Their homes are more stylish than Fine Line's. Both use Amish craftsmen from framing to finish.

I'll check them out. Thanks! I found most local builders have much higher per-square-foot costs than those elsewhere, so if an out-of-town builder is willing to build in Ithaca -- provided I can find a decent lot -- great!

[ki0eh]

I'm a bit confused by what the OP is looking for. Maybe example neighborhoods from wherever the OP came from, would even help figure it out.