As suggested in my last posts in this thread, we did indeed go ahead and sell that house. There were some reasons why it just wasn't right for us anymore and there was a large home being built that was going to block some of the best ocean views we had, so we decided to move on. Our improvements went a long way toward getting us a strong selling price and it sold immediately.
But, houses were in short supply (they still are) as demand is outstripping supply and lots of people are looking to move to this region, so finding a new house was not easy. I know it's happening in many regions and countries and it makes it tough to take the leap and list, you don't know what you will be able to find.
Our last house was on a fairly busy street and we wanted something quieter. We didn't want to get into a bidding war on a property (we saw an older 1700 sq ft rancher sell for $250k over asking recently, final price over $1 million - in a meh neighbourhood and without many updates), so we knew we might do better looking for a property that needed a few updates.
This is a lovely neighbourhood and met our needs perfectly. But the house seemed a tiny bit sad, it needed some love. Some people asked me why I was so determined to redo the kitchen as it looked decent. The house was built in 2006, so it's not that old. It had white cabinets and not a terrible layout.
But while the basic layout is ok, the cabinets have that thermofoil surface, which is susceptible to peeling. This has begun in one small area and while it's not particularly visible now, it may well be more noticeable in a few years.
One other thing is that there are too many cabinets without pull-outs. The kitchen needs more drawers to make me (and my husband) happy. We are past the point of wanting to dig things out of lower shelves in cabinets or the back of upper cabinets.
More later.
