Lifestyle

We Bought a Second House!

We bought a second house… but we’re still planning on keeping our first one! Read when, how and why we bought a second house and check out a few pictures.

yellow bungalow with green shutters

Okay, so the title of today’s post kind of gives it away doesn’t it?  We bought a second house!  Now, you may be thinking, didn’t they just have a second baby?  Yes, yes we did… but before you go thinking that we’re completely insane, let me explain why we bought a second house (and, why we aren’t selling our first house either!).

I’ll be going into a lot of text-heavy details today, with just a few photos of our new home’s exterior.  In the next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing photos/videos of the interior (along with my plans for the space) so stay tuned!

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The home has both an attached carport and a sort of detached garage.

Why We Bought a Second House

For those who aren’t aware, the Husband owns a business that is located about a 2-hour drive away from where we live.  Since he doesn’t want to drive 4 hours every day, he ends up staying near where he works during the week.  This past winter, I would also go to work with him a couple of days, and his parents let us stay at their home (which is about 40-45 minute drive away from work).

Those 45 minutes were definitely starting to get to us, especially since we started taking Zachary with us to daycare.  We’d have to wake him up early, would feed him at work then dropped him off.  And he never fell back asleep in the car, so on days when he didn’t have daycare, he would start getting up earlier.  Add to the fact that at the ends of the days we needed to either have dinner cooked ahead of time and brought with us, or we wouldn’t eat until after 7pm (although we did feed Zachary before we left).  The days were very long, and if ever there was a lot of snow, the drive wasn’t too pleasant (down hilly country roads with no cell service!).

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Although none of the doors going to the garage actually work…

When

Since I’m kind of addicted to homes, I’d always spend my spare time searching real estate listings online.  Although, it was mostly looking for vacant land since we want to eventually build our next/forever home.  I was always adamant that I did not want to sell our house and move to a different town (ie: where the Husband works) since we have so much of our life rooted in Sudbury already (we’d have to travel back and visit friends, go shopping, do activities, etc.).

But I would still search online for houses, and even threw out the idea “What if we just bought a second house, one that we could live in during the week…”  And surprisingly, one day the Husband agreed that it might not be such a bad idea!

(Although his ultimate plan may be for me to fall in love with this house in this area so we can sell our first one… ha!)

I should mention that where the Husband works, the houses are a LOT cheaper than where we live.  We could get something comparable in size to our house, at half the cost (or less!).  After saving a few listings on realtor.ca, I contacted a real estate agent and we made some appointment to view available properties in March.

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There’s a covered patio outside too, and a mostly patio stone covered backyard

What

We were looking for something detached that had a basement area that could be rented out (so needed a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room – or enough space to add those things).  Because this would be our second home, we definitely were looking for something to offset the cost of the additional mortgage!  And, since we won’t be living in our half of the house full-time, we’re also hoping we can Airbnb it during weekends…

Luckily, the Husband works in an old mining community, so a lot of the houses were already set up with apartment areas in the basement (I’d guess maybe half the ones we looked at?).  We even checked out a nice semi-detached that had an apartment, and right before we put an offer on it – it was sold!

Obviously, we had a ticking schedule (baby was due April 19 and I wasn’t planning on travelling in April) so we tried to see more houses one last time in March.  I figured the Husband could continue the search by himself during the summer (when more properties would become available) but we ended up finding a home that checked all our boxes.

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The front yard looks much better, and the first thing we need to tackle is removing that weird garbage fence on the right side!

How

We purchased a detached bungalow home with 3 bedrooms upstairs, and a separate back entrance that leads to a basement with its own bathroom and kitchen area!  Unfortunately, the house was not in the greatest condition and the basement will need to be completely renovated before we can bring in any tenants (or before we rent out the upstairs and live in the basement ourselves)… but it was a good deal at least…

We put our offer in at the end of March, had a bit of back and forth on the price; had the offer accepted and conditions set for April 19th (the baby’s due date) and we closed the first week of May.  I just got in last week to take these photos, do some cleanup and start planning the renovations.  The Husband was there for the home inspection (which is normally my job, but I was at home waiting for baby to come…) so I was itching to get in and start taking dimensions (he did get me some, but I needed to double-check them).

Financially, we were able to put 20% down and get the rest mortgaged; and if you combine the amount owing with the amount owing on our first mortgage – it’s less money than the original purchase price of our first/main house.  We’ll need to put a lot of money into the renovations, and that’s what we’ll be focusing on now.  Hopefully we’ll have the basement fixed up soon so we can get a tenant; but for now, I need to plan plan plan and get the Husband on board with my ideas!

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Like I mentioned, I’ll be sharing photos and videos of the before of both the upstairs and basement area within the next couple of weeks; so you’ll definitely want to come check those posts out!  The upstairs is almost livable as is (although needs lots of cleaning) and the basement… well let’s just say I’ll have a lot of upcoming projects to share :)

Nicole Q-Schmitz name signoff

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2 Comments

  • Reply
    Annette Leroux
    May 16, 2018 at 12:24 am

    Congratulations on your purchase. This will certainly make life easier for you two lovebirds and the two wee ones.

    • Reply
      Nicole
      May 16, 2018 at 8:44 pm

      That’s what we’re hoping at least!

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