Looking to buy a house (Raleigh, Cary: rental, countertops, appliances)

[Eeyore1]

needcaffeine-

I just sent you a PM with the name of the company from whom we bought our house. For those who wish to check out the neighborhood, take a drive around these streets: Brighton, Sheffield, Stevens, Bertie, Glascock, etc. It's the area around Enloe High School.

[needcaffeine]

Originally Posted by miamiblue

Of course you know you're going to have to let us know what areas you looked at and liked, in addition to the ones you didn't care for. Don't worry, I won't poach. I'm not quite at the point of looking at houses yet, just getting a feel for what's out there in my price range.

Hah, I'm not afraid of you poaching a house I like. I'm afraid of the home owner seeing my post on here and taking offense to something I didn't like about their home.

- I found a house off of New Bern Ave by Longview Lake that I kinda liked, but it's really small.
- Found a house on Brighton that was gorgeous in and out but I hated the kitchen. Hate hate hate. Very little counter space. I spent so much of my day in the kitchen that I need to LOVE it or I won't buy the place.
- Found a place off of Tryon that was huuuuge, but it was obvious that it had been rented the last year or two and the renters didn't really take care of it, and apparently neither had the landlord. Super high maintenance. High HOA dues. Front *and* back yard were completely in the shade-- meaning I can't grow a lot of the flowers/vegetables I'd like to. And I hated the kitchen and the general floor plan itself. It wasn't open. Realtor suggested I spent ~1500 to open up the kitchen and put a counter in, but I didn't want to do more work when I hated the place so much.
- Found another place on Tryon that coincidentally happened to have the same floor plan as above, but the yard was gorgeous. I liked everything about the place other than that the floor plan was not open and it cost even more than the previous place off of Tryon. Great house for someone else, just not for me.
- And of course the house on E.Davie St. 'nuff said.

Disclaimer: All of these homes may be great for someone else. They just aren't what *I* need/want.

[miamiblue]

Originally Posted by needcaffeine

Can you define a geographical boundary for me? I must suck at the Googling.

Nelson mentioned one area:

Originally Posted by Nelson919

I also agree with the previous recommendation for Lockwood/Longview. Anything ITB east of Brookside Drive and north of Milburnie Rd is worth checking out as a potential good value, in my opinion.

The Longview Gardens Neighborhood Association (not an HOA, they have a website - if you want to check it out just google) defines the boundaries of that neighborhood as:

Bertie Drive, at the circle;
Albemarle over to New Bern Avenue;
Intersection of New Bern Avenue and Peartree;
King William Road;
Intersection of New Bern Avenue and King William Road;
Intersection of New Bern Avenue and King Charles Road;
King Charles Road to circle;

Here is City-Data's Longview map: http://www.city-data.com/neighborhoo...aleigh-NC.html

And the Lockwood map: http://www.city-data.com/neighborhoo...aleigh-NC.html

[Nelson919]

And don't forget Woodcrest/Belvedere Park which is the area sandwiched between Capital Blvd and Lockwood (Fenton St, Dennis Ave, etc).

[needcaffeine]

I've expanded my realty search to include these areas, thank you.

[lovebrentwood]

You're right. I checked the real estate records. They are double homes masquerading as singles. I rarely drive by there. I also found out I know someone who owns several of them(!). I didn't know he owned anything but his own home.

Originally Posted by Nelson919

I could be wrong, but I believe all the houses on Atlantic Ave between New Hope Church and Highwoods are two-family houses -- including the ones on all those tiny cul-de-sacs.

I think they were purposely built to have the appearance of single family houses.

[lovebrentwood]

Regarding buying a small home... if I may share my experience...

When I was looking for my first home as a newly single mom of two kids, I needed only a small 3-bedroom, or so I thought.

The real estate agent showed me a small ranch. The single woman who owned it had three daughters. She was marrying a man with two daughters. They had all moved in together and needed to turn the basement into a bedroom for four of the girls. Of course, it was not an ideal situation whatsoever.

The woman told me in tears how much she loved her little home and how she never thought she'd leave it. But, of course, with the large family, they were forced to move. She said she really wished she'd bought something larger to start with.

So when I moved to Raleigh, I thought of that woman. Even though I would have been satisfied with a smaller home, I didn't know what the future would bring. Now, I couldn't be happier that I bought the biggest house I could afford. The future brought a new husband with stuff, and he needed room.

You may not want children for another five years, but Things Happen. Or you could develop a hobby or interest that takes up space. Or maybe you'll some day want a home business. Or you could find out those aussies love to run around the inside of the house, too.

Except for empty nesters, I don't know many people who say, "I need to move. This house is too big for us!"

So my unsolicited advice would be to buy something a bit bigger than what you actually need now. You'll never regret it.

Originally Posted by needcaffeine

Optimally, I'd like to keep it at 180K and under. Since it's going to be just me, my fiancée and our two aussies and we're not planning on having kids for AT LEAST another 5 years, we have no need for some giant place with 4 bedrooms, etc. We need one bedroom to sleep in, and one bedroom for my home office.

I went and looked at 5 houses in that range today and ended up really liking one of them. Going to go look at 4 more in the Brentwood area on Friday and see if I like any of them. I'd live in Apex or Morrisville no problem except the girl works at NCSU and well, I'm a sucker.

[Richd67]

Try looking in Garner. there are some great neighborhoods and is not very far from downtown Raleigh.

[imtheone81]

While I use Google for most everything Yahoo!'s map actually breaks up neighborhoods, pretty helpful.

The King Charles area is the northeastern section ITB roughly enclosed by New Bern & Raleigh Blvd. Going north from New Bern:

Longview Gardens - the more expensive neighborhood of the area, rumored to soon be a "historic district." Streets: Clarendon Crescent, Lord Berkeley, etc. These houses start range from $150-300k and many have 1/2+ lots.

Longview Park - roughly north of Beatie Drive. This part has some houses in good condition, but it varies. There are a bunch of cute renovated homes on Stevens Dr. for sale for around $150k

Windsor Park - north of Milburnie, south of Glascock, east until Brighton or so. A nice small pocket with a rapidly growing number of renovated houses. Mostly 2 bedroom homes.

Lockwood - Similar to Windsor Park, but Lockwood seems to be a bit larger. Mostly Glascock st and the streets right off of it. It continues northwest on Brighton, onto Millbank and inches closer to the older Park Glen condos. Lockwood also has a lot of 2 bedroom homes.

Rollingwood - in the middle of Lockwood is a neighborhood of larger homes on streets like Remmington in the NE corner of the neighborhood.

Our favorite spots are definitely Lockwood and Windsor Park. We almost bought a renovated bungalow in Battery Heights (near Roberts Park), but Lockwood is a happy medium of city and suburbs.

If you're looking inside the beltline, I'd recommend getting a realtor who lives there. It made the world of difference for us. We're more than happy to share our realtor's info if it would help.

[needcaffeine]

After I move somewhere, I should throw you all a freaking housewarming party for the super useful advice I've gotten here over the last couple days.

Originally Posted by lovebrentwood

Regarding buying a small home... if I may share my experience...
<snip>
You may not want children for another five years, but Things Happen. Or you could develop a hobby or interest that takes up space. Or maybe you'll some day want a home business. Or you could find out those aussies love to run around the inside of the house, too.
<snip>
So my unsolicited advice would be to buy something a bit bigger than what you actually need now. You'll never regret it.

Unsolicited, but not unwelcome.

I'm taking the girl with me tomorrow and checking out the 950 sqft place I happened to like a lot, along with two houses in Brentwood. I'd found one other nice looking property that is still listed on realtor.com but is under contract and of the two I found in Brentwood, one looks really really nice inside and is ~1900 sqft but still affordable. The other one will be sold as-is and is more expensive than the aforementioned, so I don't know what's up with that. We'll see. But yeah, I'm excited.

This has progressed from a Man I hate renting ----> I wonder if I should look into buying ----> Looking to buy a house pretty quickly. Kinda like when I bought my car last year after my Stratus died. But this time I won't buy the first house I test drive.