Risk taker or ostrich?
This house-hunting has exposed some things about me and Kristen that I’d like to share.

Risky business
There is little doubt that buying “this old house” would be a massive risk. It’s more house than we can afford [though the mortgage guy is happy to loan it to us!] and it has more projects attached to it than I would know what to do with. I guess that it has 75-100 weekend projects. All kinds of stuff from ripping out the bad part of the barn to redecking a porch or two to splash guards in the kitchen. There are just oodles of little projects like that.

I look at it and say “for every dollar you invest, you get $2 back.” Kristen looks at it as a money pit. The naysayers in our lives say “you don’t have time for that, it will eat you alive.”

All true. But it may be our one chance in our lifetimes where we can take a risk on a “This Old House” candidate and see it pay off. While the naysayers see risk, I only see reward.

Rewards
I mean more than investment income. (Though I do mean this as well.) There seems to be a lot of reward in fixing up your own house. Like Napoleon Dynamite, I’ve got some skills. I look at this and see working on things with the kids and with Kristen. I see them enjoying the barn and the big yard. I see teaching them how to do stuff and learning a lot along the way.

No lone ranger
Just like in ministry. I have to weigh all of this against the impact on our family. This whole idea of risk taking stresses Kristen out. I have matured enough to know that I can’t just bulldoze through her emotions. I don’t want to take a risk that all of us aren’t in on 100%. A big thing I’ve learned here is that while I am a “wild risk taker” Kristen may only be a “risk taker in theory.” A lot to think on!

But, but, butt…
Yeah, there is that. This afternoon we are going to look at some other stuff in the village. Things that need less work, but aren’t quite so cool. Scattered all over are tons of bungalows and ranches. Not as sexy, but a lot less work. We need to at least give this a look.

Money
So I talked with a mortgage guy. For the first time in my life someone told me I had good credit. He said we could even afford a much heftier mortgage than I am looking at… No way! But it was nice to finally hear those words “you’ve got great credit, don’t worry.” Wow.

This is what the house looks like if you are driving from the west into town. Lots of potential. 

It’s not all a bed of roses. There are a lot of “weekend projects” around this old place like this porch decking. 

This is the kitchen. To say it needs some TLC is an understatement! 

This shows some of the detail work that we could bring out if we decided to do this house. 

This is the barn. Apparently back in the 1800’s this was used to house visiting horses. Hard to believe this is in the heart of our town! 

This is the front of the house we are looking at. 

Let me start off by apologizing about the last post. It was poorly written with several massive typo’s. I suppose I had a couple of folks talking to me as I wrote that one.

VBS
Kingdom of the Son got kicked off this morning. I’m sure later in the week the numbers will be more important. But today everything went really swell. Lots of kiddies, good times had by all. Check out our first days video by clicking here.

More on the house?
There is a lot going on. We plan on looking at the house on Tuesday. Since we’re complete morons to buying a house I have little idea what to really look for. We’re also starting to think about the financing and worrying about our credit. We’ve learned that we could make a penalty free withdraw on an IRA for up to $10,000. That will come in handy. If we proceed I think I’ll even post the link to it. But for now… I’m being a pessimist.

Light Force
We’ve got Light Force this week. It seems like a million years ago since we’ve met. Though it’s only been 12 days! Hmmm… I must be a youth pastor!

A couple of days ago I mentioned that we might be interested in purchasing.

A friend of mine lives a couple doors down from that house, so I asked him to let me know what he knew about the property. Today and church we finally got to chat about it. He told me that no one was living there and that it hadn’t been on the market as long as I had thought. So, I was pretty passive about the whole thing.

After church we had our church picnic. (Which rocked!) As I was making my way around the tables and greeting people, the same friend said, “Hey PA… you know that house we were talking about? These guys own it. I forgot you knew them.” I was floored when I realized that the people who own it are a part of our church family! Too cool.

Long story short, Kristen and I will go check it out this week and decide if it is something we can do. They were saying that they had hoped that the divided house would become a single family home with the new owners, but keeping it as a rental for a few years might be good too. Since it is literally downtown Romeo as well, we see it as having some really explosive growth potential. The house next store has been converted to a real estate office… if we held onto it for a few years we may be able to roll it over into commercial space.

So… we’re pretty excited about this new news. We could actually be buying a house? What’s up with that?

Ready, set, go
This morning is Romeo’s annual Village-wide Garage sale. It’s one of the small events that makes Romeo cool. There will be a couple hundred garage sales crammed into the village part of town. Kristen and I are looking for a couple pieces of furniture for our house. We need a nightstand for our bedroom, and I am on the look-out for a toddler bed for Paul.

In other news
Today is a busy day. After the garage sale I’ll be taking some students down to St. Thomas for their annual sand volleyball thing. If that’s not enough… After that we will be going to a student’s graduation party.

“Behind the scenes” news
Kristen and I have gotten a lead on a house. It’s been on the market for a long time and since it is an estate… We’ve gotten wind that they may be willing to come down on the price bigtime. It is exactly what we are looking for. Big old house that needs some work. Big yard, perfect location, infinite income potential in the village. Better yet, while is it well out of our price range it includes a rental which would make it affordable for us. If it were to fly it would be the miracle we’ve been waiting for on a house! Even if it goes no where it has been fun to talk about.