[wanna be a young mother]

So we have slowly been fixing our house up over the years. We lived here for almost 6 years now. I love the fact that we live right next door to my grandparents. They are such a big help with everything.

So here is my problem. We have pretty much finished the whole inside of the house. All I have left is the kitchen (new tile, counters and cabinets). The outside needs new siding and windows. I know its older than 50 years. My guess is around 65 years old. We "thought" it was in great condition when we bought it. Well if you dont look under the house it is anyway . The foundation is not looking so good. It's going to cost us a LOT of money to fix it. I mean a lot, a really really lot !

So we have an empty lot between my grandparents houe and ours. They own the lot but would be willing to sell it to us for pretty much nothing. So here is the big problem. It would cost us the same amount of money to A) fix said foundation and other things or B) Take down our house and build a new one. If we pay for everything with out going through the banks. It would cost us about $70,000-$85,000. Our house right now with the lot is worth $110,000. The new house would sell (in a better market of course) for almost $220,000 but we wouldn't be selling it. C)We could also buy the empty lot between our houses and build there and try to sell our house but we like the extra lot.

I just dont know what to do! Do we invest the money in our current house that is only 2 bedrooms and 1 bath and falling apart or build a 4 bedroom 2 bath house in its place. The contractor said we are talking about 7-9 months here. So thats 7-9 months of us living with someone else. What do you think? What should I do???

[Alejandros Mommy]

Wow a house for 220? I wish I lived around your area.

But it really depends on what you want to do...a new house would be less maintenance. Would have new roof etc...and easier to maintain. The plumbing would be new and you would not have to worry about re-doing it down the road. The insulation would be new...lower heating and cooling costs. If it was me I would go for new and sell the old house.

[wanna be a young mother]

See the problem is with the market I wouldn't be able to sell the old house. That's why we figured it would be better to take the old one down and build a new in its place.

[purelegance]

if you can afford to, i would just build new. you're looking at the same time frame, and 7-9 months can seem really long if you're living with somebody else.

[punkepooh]

I would build new and if your tearing down your old house see what you can salvage (floors, appliances, ect) for the new house to help keep costs lower, if your mortgage stays around the same and it would be worth more when the market gets better 3/4 bedrooms sell better than 2 bedrooms, and like Lessly said less maintanance good luck

[wanna be a young mother]

We dont have a mortgage now (long story )and we would try to work it out so we wouldn't have one with the rebulid as well.

I guess my main concern is if I get pregnant the house may not be done in time for the new baby. Plus I hate living with other people but we could not afford to rebuild and pay rent. I guess we need to sit down with the contractor and figure this out. I can tell it's going to be slow moving . The house across the street is being built by the same contractor and we were thinking about buying that one and selling ours but what he payed to build it and what it costs is like a $100,000 difference. Plus the house next door is right on top of it and I like my big empty lot next door .