May 26, 2013 – The garden is in full swing now, and the ferns are reaching out of the shadows.
I thought we would have been thinking about moving by now, but we still can’t find a place that we want to call our new home. We thought we found one a couple of weeks ago, in Lynn Valley, we were ready to make an offer. It had pretty much everything. And then we caught a look at the financials and a year old repair report. The repair report isn’t entirely surprising, the place is 30+ years old. But there will definitely be some significant repairs to be dealt with across the complex over the next five years and that is a big factor in deciding whether or not to make an offer, and how much that offer should be. What we found more disturbing is the high maintenance fees and the lack of clarity in the financials. The complex is professionally managed, but you wouldn’t know that from the cryptic minutes and financial reports. And that’s a bigger cause for concern. A Strata that seems to be bleeding money and unwilling to take on its own management makes us nervous.
So we have continued to look.
Today we went through five townhouses and two duplexes. The first townhouse was in Lower Lonsdale on Esplanade and was interesting for the location – central to absolutely everything. It was pretty, but ultimately too dark and quite small.
The second townhome was up along Mount Seymour parkway. A lovely complex that we have wanted to view for some time. We’d driven by it before and liked it. It has a double garage, but tandem which is a pain since you have to juggle vehicles to get bikes out. After looking it over we realized we hadn’t seen the laundry anywhere, only to be told it is in the garage. Seems like an inconvenience, particularly during the winter when wet vehicles will be inside the space. There also was very little storage. No coat closet at the entrance, and the only closet at all on the main floor was a tiny one in the kitchen. Pretty, but poorly designed.
The third was absolutely fabulous! The home was more like a house. Huge spaces, tons of light, beautifully finished, a private setting, with a creek burbling right out back. Gorgeous and so much space! Everything was just perfect. . . except for the tiny single car garage and the teensy outside parking spot. We are pretty sure the truck wouldn’t fit in the garage, and a passenger would have to get out before you could park it in the outside spot it is so tight. We really want a double car garage. Neither of us wants to leave the truck outside. If this one had that, it would have been a no-brainer. We could have gotten past the fact that it was farther out than we want to be. It would have been worth the extra drive distance.
After the three showings with our agent we left to view a few open houses on our own. We had driven by six places earlier in the day and four were of interest enough to go back and see. The first was a townhouse and was nice, but some of the spaces were a bit strange, and it only had a single garage. Scratched. The second was half a duplex and while it had a lovely kitchen, it had no garage and the yards on both it and the neighbouring half were poorly cared for. It turned us off. As did the neighbour glaring out the front window.
The third was very nice, and had two parking spots in a secure underground lot. It also came with a storage room/workshop off the parking spots. We’ve seen a few places with these spaces and they are interesting as they can be used for so many purposes. It would have been a contender if the agent hadn’t told us that there was an accepted offer on it. Very pretty, nice area, good price, well cared for, but already spoken for, oh well.
The last one we went to see was another half duplex. This one was quite lovely, but again, only a single car garage although there was a back deck, the underside of which could probably be gated in quite easily for secure motorcycle parking. The downside would be that the bikes would be more exposed. Nice flooring on the main level, but all the carpets upstairs would need to be removed, very tired. The backyard was also fully concreted in, not a leaf to be seen. Thumbs down.
So, frustratingly, another failed weekend of looking for a new home.
When we set out this morning we thought we might end up making an offer on the Lynn Valley unit by the end of the day, but the place we saw out on Mount Seymour was so fabulous and had such great light that we stepped back from that notion again. We are gun-shy of the repairs needed and the high maintenance costs.
Just not sure what to do, we aren’t finding what we want and that is making this a very frustrating experience.
Grumble.
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