Lets start by taking it back to the beginning.

It was August 2018 and James and my plan to build a garage and apartment for my parents on our property is seeming to take way too long. We had been working with our township for nearly a year on lot modifications and I knew that we were still a year or more away from having a place we could move my parents into and that was just too long a time frame. So, what else to do but decide to buy another house here in our town! Why not right?

I started the way I think most people do, Zillow and Realtor apps, right!!?

My “budget” was under 200K. That is not unheard of in our area of NJ but will require work. Some of that work is modifications for my parents. Bathroom updates, accessibility, etc. Requirements were: 1st floor master, 2 bathrooms, A/C, garage or carport and that is about it!!

I started a list and shared those options with my friend who just happened to be a realtor!

Printouts and clipboard in hand we started our in home visits. Wow, people are messy and have some pretty weird “design” ideas. We looked at options that were full disasters of damage that would have been a down to the stud flip and some that were so dated that it was close to a full flip as well. Those options were just too massive and timely to take on.

The first few weeks of visits were rough, I was anxious to find something and get started!!

Then, bless my realtor, she found an option that I had missed and it was pretty much perfect. Well perfect with some work by us. This new option was a 3 bedroom ranch 1.5 bath, heat, A/C, 2 car garage, living room and family room.

Looked like we had found a contender!