The wife and I went to two open houses on Sunday. There were a lot to choose from, owing in part to the nice weather and the beginning of the spring glut. As usual, though, the pickings were slim for us. This is is due in part to the fact that we’ve narrowed our search parameters even more. With a baby on the way, we’re not even considering any house that’s not in the Babylon school district.

223 Locust Ave

This one has been on the market for a few weeks now. It’s on Locust, so I drive by it fairly often on my way to the gym. I’ve had a pretty good look at the outside. It’s an attractive house on a modest corner lot and is in pretty decent shape.

It’s a pretty big house for the lot. The back of the house is maybe ten feet from the end of the backyard, although there’s usable yard space on either size of the house.

The inside of the house was is good shape. There’s been a lot of work done in the past few years, unfortunately a lot of it isn’t to my wife’s taste. The kitchen was nicely done, but the master bath, and to a lesser extent the second full bath, isn’t to our taste at all. It’s really worse than if the bathrooms were old and crappy.

One other thing I noted about this house is that it’s crammed with stuff from one end to the other. The garage is packed with stuff as is the funished basement and one of the bedrooms upstairs.

I’m going to keep my eye on this one. I think the bathrooms pretty much rule it out, but it’s otherwise a solid house and would suit our needs otherwise.

27 Cedar Street

When the wife and I first saw this home pop up on MLS, we thought it was pretty overpriced. It was listed as a four bed, one bath house, no garage, on a a very small 40×83 piece of property. But the pictures showed some charm, it’s close to the train and you never know.

Once we saw it we knew that it wasn’t just somewhat overprices, it’s ridicuously overpriced. Even the realtor offered that she’s been trying to get the owners to drop the price a bit. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that at an open house.

First of all, it’s a three bedroom house and the bedrooms are kind of small. I’m not sure how they get to four bedrooms unless they’re counting the enclosed porch as a bedroom. And second, the house directly faces a giant, ugly, concrete building with a huge rollup door. I’m pretty sure that’s part of an LIRR train yard. Who wants to come out of their house every day and look at that across the street. Ugh.

The rest of the house was decent, if unspectacular. The kitchen has been recently redone. The counters and backsplashes are an icky-looking granite. The carpets in the bedrooms have been pulled up to reveal beaten up hardwood floors.

This is a house with potential, but the big, train building across the street is pretty much a deal breaker.