cook house updates

check out our Green Housing blog to view the progress on the house. www.greenhousingllc.blogspot.com

Cook St house

Unfortunately, I have no pictures to post right now because Josh has kidnapped the camera but here's an update.

We are moving along with the demo on the house quite nicely. My highly optimistic husband thinks that all the demo will be done tomorrow but I'm not quite sure of that. Nonetheless, things are going well. We have all sorts of sub-contractors coming out and bidding on projects. Can't wait to get started on construction and make this place nice!

It's Official

We officially own another home! We closed on the Cook St house in Denver this afternoon. Josh is going to start demo tomorrow. If anyone is interested in doing demo or renovations with us...we'd love to have your help! Yay, we are very excited!

Apparently, the house is being used as part of a rental scam. Some guy in Puerto Rico has placed an ad in some paper and people are coming by the house with the lockbox code and wanting to rent the house. So then they send $700 to Puerto Rico for a deposit. It's happened at least 4 or 5 times in the past few weeks. People are so gullable. So next time you want to rent a place...make sure you meet the landlord and give them a check. DON'T WIRE MONEY TO A PLACE OUT OF THE COUNTRY. It's just dumb! We can't believe people fell for it.

What do you all think?

What do you all think about this exterior color scheme? I think it brings out the architectural elements of the craftsman style. The underside of the porch would not be that visible. It would obviously be in a shadow. Let me know.

inspection & sewer scope

Yesterday, we had an inspection and sewer scope for the new house. There are just normal issues related to a 98 year old home. Patch roofing, change electric boxes, leaky pipes, new H2O heater and furnace...but like I said, it's to be expected.

Last evening was the sewer scope. We were not there for it but it went well. They stick a snake with a camera on the end and make sure that everything's clear to the sewer from the house to make sure we won't get any backups in the house. nasty! Speaking of nasty. Someone had apparently broken into the house in the past week and slept there. They also pooed in one of the toilets. So when the sewer scope guy came to do his job he had to remove the toilet that had been pooed in in order to get to the sewer. In doing so he became nauseated and threw up in the process! hahahahhaha! Poor guy, how embarrassing!

So now the appraiser is going out today to make sure we are paying the right amount for the loan or rather they are loaning us the right amount of money and then we wait to close! Hopefully next week if we're lucky.

"We got the house!" Update

So last week when I said that we got the house...well, that was just one big miscommunication. The listing agent misspoke when telling our agent about our offer and so we all had the wrong info. They hadn't accepted the offer, they had accepted the offer for REVIEW...whatever that means!? So we waited and then heard that other offers had been put in for higher than ours, argh. We raised our offer to $325k. On Wed. of last week we got a verbal acceptance of our offer and found out that we wouldn't hear back until Monday (yesterday) if they officially accepted it. Well, Monday came and Josh had to send in the official offer of $325k and still no word. This morning...no word. Then, finally, at 4pm today Josh got word that they officially accepted the offer! So Yayayayayayayay! Tomorrow is the inspection so pray that all goes well and there are no major issues with the house.

Oh and Josh found out (through google) that the house used to be some sort of old peoples home.

we got a house!!!!!!!!!

here are several pictures of the house:

the front (it feels so much bigger in person)

the kitchen that needs help!

the living room

the dining room

random pics of the dining room in use by previous residents! hahaha! check out granny!

we put in an offer today for an awesome house and it was accepted later this afternoon. we even beat out a higher bidder because they asked for a longer closing. yes! we are very excited but definitely slightly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the project.


the house is a total of 3000 square feet which includes a crappy finished basement. it is a magnificent craftsman style home built in 1909. it is quite a deal and is located right off colfax and cook just east of downtown denver. 2.5 blocks from city park!!! the house used to be some sort of facility because the bedrooms are numbered and there is a commercial fire alarm system.


of course, our offer is pending 3 major things: complete mortgage approval, inspection, and other offers for more. wish us luck!

we are very excited to get started rehabing the house and to sell it. we hope to do it in 3 months!!!

real estate scheming

well, we were about to put an offer on a very cute (look that way>>) house in a decent location when we found out that someone put an offer in that was accepted the day before. "rats!" we said.

then...we went to direct buy (wholesale membership store for household items...) last night and got to talking to the owner about real estate investing. we were there for over 3 hours. my feet hurt and i was very tired but it was worth it. the money we'll save on renovations for our houses will be awesome!

josh's newest real estate scheme is to buy cheap condos in Aurora (blah!), make them decent to live in and rent them at a decent rate. i think it's potentially a safer plan since the real estate market is in a lull right now. while this plan wouldn't give us any short-term income it would secure a better retirement. any thoughts, friends? anyone want to live in Aurora?!?!? hahaha! yeah right!

if we do the condos only we probably won't be staying in colorado much longer.

we'll keep you posted because with josh's adventurous mind things change daily.