[groar]

Originally Posted by KH02

The home in canton is under deposit.

Also, with winter coming it wouldn't be the best time to be camping out while fixing up a home. It can get awfully cold. As far as the waterbury house you mentioned, I dont know the area of Waterbury but know that none of them are that great, and as an FYI the schools there are horrible!!

If I were you I would concentrate more on towns like Bristol and Plainville as they are not as high crime as many of the other cities you listed. Bristol seems to have quite a few homes under that price point. However, be sure to read the details as almost all of them are sold in "as is" condition, and a few are CASH only sales. Good Luck

yeah, i noticed that the place in canton is pending sale now.

we're planning on moving in the spring so as long as we can sell our house here in time, we'll have the whole summer to get ready for winter. and camping out in the winter is possible if we have a wood stove and hot water.

paying cash may be an option for us as well. or we might be able to do a big deposit and get a house at a higher price point, but that's not certain yet.

thank you!

[kidyankee764]

I'm not sure what town to even suggest. $70-90k is near impossible even in the worst parts of CT. Honestly I had to re-read it because I thought that was your income.

Can you stay with family, save a little, and then buy?

[RogerAnthony]

Originally Posted by groar

oh and to narrow things down, these are the towns that seem to have a lot of places in our price range:

meriden
waterbury
torrington
thomaston
winsted
bristol
middletown
plainville
new britain (but my husband says he won't live there!)
beacon falls
naugatuck
plymouth (not terryville though)
new haven (a little far from torrington and the areas where houses are in our range are probably terrible, but we like the city.)

From your list I would focus on Torrington, Thomaston, Bristol, Plainville, Beacon Falls, Naugatuck, and Plymouth. Those towns are safe and have decent (not great) schools. I'd stay away from urban areas like Waterbury, New Britain, and New Haven as you will be in a very bad area at your price range where your safety may be compromised and the schools may not be what you are hoping for.

[Stylo]

I don't want to come across sounding demeaning in any way, this is a serious suggestion. Look at trailer parks. No joke. There are trailer parks in nicer towns where you can afford a place, not be at the edge of a ghetto, and have good schools. There are trailer parks in Newtown, Danbury, Orange, Milford, even Westport, among other towns. Give it a look if good schools are a priority and you can't spend more.

[willow wind]

You really need to think your plans through carefully. If you can pay cash for a property, then you're probably OK to do as you wish.

If you have to borrow, then it's another story. No lender in today's lending environment is going to mortgage a wreck and let you fix it up if and when you chose. They'll simply pass on the loan. If it is not in decent shape to start and readily marketable, lenders don't want to know about it. VA & FHA financing would require the repairs to be completed before closing. If you were going to do them yourself, generally you would have to show proof of the funds first. Sometimes 1.5 times the estimated amounts. It's also usually not wise to do any repairs on something that you did not legally own to begin with as there is no guarantee that a loan will close.

You could use an FHA 203K rehab loan. But you you have to licensed repair people do the work, it has to be done within 6 months of closing and it gets inspected by others as the project goes along. There are no do it yourself, when we get around to it , 203K loans. It's a good program and may be just what you would want.

Do lots of research and line up all your ducks in a row before you even think about buying something.

Good luck

[groar]

yeah, we've thought about doing a 203k. using contractors in that case would be no problem since the cost would be built into the loan.

I'm not sure what town to even suggest. $70-90k is near impossible even in the worst parts of CT.

it was at one point, it really isn't anymore. there are tons of places in most of the towns i listed and tons more in places like bridgeport where we aren't really looking. i upped our price range to $110 on the assumption that we might be able to put down a large deposit and it opened up even more places. some are cash or 203k only type places, but not all of them. almost all of them have seen massive price drops in the past few years (we're talking 50 and even 75%). many of them are short sales. the real estate market really seems to be tanking up there, at least in some places. we wouldn't be considering this move if we weren't seeing places in our price range.

I don't want to come across sounding demeaning in any way, this is a serious suggestion. Look at trailer parks. No joke. There are trailer parks in nicer towns where you can afford a place, not be at the edge of a ghetto, and have good schools. There are trailer parks in Newtown, Danbury, Orange, Milford, even Westport, among other towns. Give it a look if good schools are a priority and you can't spend more.

yeah there are definitely places we could afford in trailer parks. places we could pay cash for no problem in some areas (we're talking under $20k).my husband is dead set against it, more because he wants either some privacy and room for a garden or walkable amenities and those places are generally very dense yet isolated. plus neither of us wants to deal with park or condo association rules and bureaucracy. but i do think it's a possibility if we find the right place, just to get into a town and school district we like. there are also some trailers on larger pieces of land out there for decent prices, where we could live while building a house. a piece of land with a well and septic in place (putting those in is one thing i have no idea of the cost of but i'm guessing it's a lot) would be amazing.

[in_newengland]

Canton is nice and has a good school system if you could possibly find a fixer upper. I saw a fixer upper condo (if you could stand that for a while) for around $90,000 and it had a little patio and garden place. I'm pretty sure if you fixed it up you could make money because it's in a good town and the other units are much higher. I know someone who lives there and has never had any problems with management. That might give you leverage to get a real house. With your budget it's really hard to find anything fixable that you would want to live in later.

[willow wind]

Well, now you're bringing up possibilities that again may not really be possible. You could buy a piece of land with a trailer already on it and build your own house.

The state of CT does not permit people to buy land and then put a permanent trailer on it. New trailers can only go in trailer parks except in one circumstance- get to that in a second. So any property you find with a trailer already on it is a non-conforming use.

If you want to build on such a lot, you will get exactly one year to get your home up, completed and have a certificate of occupancy. Then you move into the new home and get rid of the trailer. You don't get to keep both. Remember the existing trailer is non-conforming and you just built a conforming home, so the non-conforming use has to go .

You can also buy a piece of land and rent a trailer for exactly one year and live in it on the land while you build. You do have to put in a well and septic sized for the new home, then just hook the trailer into it temporarily. Then the same scenario as above applies. I know people who have done this.

As for an existing well and septic. You might be able to keep the same well, depends on the flow. The septic too is a question. Septics are sized per number of bedrooms. Depending on your soil, it can be a few thousands or fifteen thousand to put in a new septic system. You won't know that up front until you have a septic company come out and take a look. Wells are cost per foot, so until they start drilling you may not know how deep you have to go.

I don't know if it cost effective to buy land with trailer , then build. Building is expensive. Materials in New England are among the highest in the country. Unless you're a licensed in CT general contractor, you'll need licensed, plumber, electrical, heating, etc.

Since you only have a year to build before you start getting hit with daily fines, you're going to need a
construction loan and/or cash to buy materials outright . The whole project may cost a whole lot more than finding a ready made house you like and can live with. You won't be able to get a construction loan if you already have a loan on the original land with trailer.

You could explore with local banks to see if you could find one that would wrap the land/ trailer purchase with house construction. But I have a feeling that is going to be a lot more money than you planned on spending.

Probably easiest and cheapest to just keep looking for a house on a decent sized lot

[groar]

thank you willow wind, that was very informative! good to know that we will need to cross that option off the list.

i had a feeling the well and septic costs varied widely, which is why putting them in makes me nervous!

Originally Posted by RogerAnthony

From your list I would focus on Torrington, Thomaston, Bristol, Plainville, Beacon Falls, Naugatuck, and Plymouth. Those towns are safe and have decent (not great) schools. I'd stay away from urban areas like Waterbury, New Britain, and New Haven as you will be in a very bad area at your price range where your safety may be compromised and the schools may not be what you are hoping for.

thank you!

in newengland - i went to canton high, haha! it is definitely a good school. i also went to northwestern regional 7 (and barkhamsted elementary) and i'm kind of curious how that stacks up but i couldn't find any ratings or rankings of it on the site linked above. i'll have to check that out on my own later. i have a feeling it's lower performing than canton but i felt like i got a good education there as a motivated kid with good parental support, and i had some of the best teachers of my life there.

i am ok with the right condo but again, my husband is pretty against it. it's definitely not either of our first choice. if you could link me to that condo for sale i'd appreciate it though.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by groar

anyway, any ideas of places to look? general thoughts about towns in that area?

I have family in Torrington and know there are many low-cost fixers around. I did a search including Torrington, Norfolk, Winchester, Terryville and Thomaston, and found 20 places under $110,000 with lots larger than a half acre, many in Winchester. The elementary schools in Winchester are average or better, and there is plenty of recreation between hiking and swimming in summer and sledding and skating in winter. There are several fixers in Torrington where the schools are at least average rated. If you search for under $90K and a half acre or more you still get 4 houses in Torrington. They are tiny, between 700-1200 square feet and they need work. I like the one on Norfolk Road with 2.5 wooded acres, as you could increase its size if you have children. You could clear the woods if you want a garden. That house was $89,000, and was 680 SF with a basement, septic and town water.

Good luck with your plans, as I like it when people want to rescue an older house.