well since i stopped being very active on all these message boards allot has happened life has improved. it started with the complex manager of the apartment we had lived in for 12 years refusing to replace the carpets wile we lived there they were thin when we moved in and ours was the last apartment that had not been totally remodeled and i think they wanted us out so they could get on with it.
i told my wife we had to move and she told me she flat out refused to move if we were just going to move to another apartment. she does not like moving at all she likes stability.
so i talked to our bank and found out as first time home buyers there was allot of help available to us through FHA and grants and the fact that we have very good credit. and the banker told us that if we worked everything right we could buy a house with $1000 down up to $40,000 which in this area is very viable for a foreclosure house at this time.
so i called a realtor that is a friend of or family and we went looking for houses.
to make a long story short we found a nice little house with 1 1/2 car garage and a small lot in a nice neighborhood and after it was all over and the banker worked her magic we ended up with a mortgage for a bit over $28,000 and we put just over $1000 down
it does need some work i had to have a roof put on the house last year got a really good deal on a metal roof and we are slowly replacing all the windows they are all old single pane and it needs a bit of siding work and some paint. and the kitchen and bathroom need to be remodeled but it is completely livable as is only had to fix a few minor things to get it move in ready.
this is what the house looked like when we bought it
here you can see them finishing up the new roof
you can notice the 90% dead evergreen on the left side of the photo that was winter bit the winter before i was hoping it would spring back but it never did and i took it out this spring as it was becoming a fire hazard
early this spring i planted an apple tree it just started to leaf out couple weeks ago it is a golden delicious semi dwarf
also started a small garden i am testing a new method of no till gardening partly do to the fact that wile i was living in an apartment all those years my brother inlaw took the engine off my tiller and put it in a go cart for my nieces and nephews and its now in bad shape. and partly because this method is supposed to reduce the amount of weeds you have to deal with to almost none. but anyway i made it small this year so if it fails i will not have a huge mess to deal with.