Grandparentslist

Buying a condominium is not as easy as it seems. You think it's another home purchase just like the ones before. This time the needs are different. You have thought it through and decided for something smaller and easier to manage on a daily basis. Let me walk you through some of the steps we took to arrive at our condo.

We started out looking at two things. The first is money. How much did we think we could afford. Putting this together was more of a job than I thought. There was money on hand, investment savings, pension, home sale cash, tax implications, future income, real estate fees, down payment, moving costs and possibly rehab costs. Keeping in mind inflation and ever increasing health costs I waded through all this. It was then possible for me to come up with a close enough price to pay for a place. 

     The second important thing was location. We didn't have children at home (little did we know what would happen later), schools were not important. A  two bedroom place seem fit our needs. An area radius of ten miles on the map, we started looking. 

We started out by trying to verbally  describe what was going to suit us. The kitchen had to be large enough to have our dining room table and china cabinet  fit or have a separate dining room for them. Other than that, we seemed to be fairly flexible. 

   We contacted a realtor and started looking at units about one to two a day. Two story, one story, with and without basements, dinning rooms, garages, multiple bathrooms, and some that were ready to go and others needing rehab. 

     After a month, our realtor called for a meeting at the office. When we arrived, we were introduced to our new person who would help us find a place (a trainee). Seems our looking was going on too long with no results. A few weeks later of beating the bushes, we came across a nice place we could agree on. But, the kitchen needed to a rehab to accommodate our table and cabinet. So, draw up the papers and get this done.