Where to buy?

One of the first question for a house hunter to consider is where am I going to look for a house?
Our current city of residence was completely out of the question, as the average house price was over $500,000 and our top budget was $175k. That's what happens when two people working as retail managers try to buy a house near the nation's capitol where lawyers and government workers live and play.

What is a girl to do? Well, we started looking in a few cities that were about 45 minutes away from the city. We would be looking at a 45 minute commute to work but the possibility of getting a house for our budget was much higher than staying in our current area.
We met our Realtor, Chuck, at the first house. House hunting was a family affair, as both our parent's have done this before while we, obviously haven't. We arrived at the first house with Scott's mother and niece, and waited for my parents to arrive.

*No Entry House*

The initial impression of the house was...ok...it was listed as a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a beautiful bay window and huge back yard. We walked up to the front door and Chuck opened up the door. We were greeted by the low and menacing growl of the house's current resident, a very large male pit bull. Chuck took one look at the 120 pound pit's glistening white fangs and very calmly closed the door and locked it. Why was there a loose pit bull in the house you ask? The house was being sold by a married couple. The husband wanted to get out of the house while they still could, while the wife was not ready to part with their home. After the husband left for work she had let the dog out of his crate knowing that the house could not be shown while she was at work.



* It has great...potential?*

Onward! The next house we looked at was in Sterling Virginia and was an amazing $130k. We pull up and the outside of the house showed great potential. The house was listed as a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom split level on a fairly large yard. Well...the yard was big...and on a corner that seemed fairly busy. As we got closer to the house we started to notice some glaring problems with the house. One of the windows was broken, and the gutters were falling off. Since we had driven all that way we might as well go in.
The generally layout of the house was, in all honesty, my dream house. You walk in to the living room, dining room and kitchen. You can then go upstairs to the three bedrooms, or down a short flight of stairs to the basement/washing area.
The problem? The kitchen was completely gutted, there were multiple holes in the wall, and from the look (and smell) of the basement the previous tenant did not flush the toilets prior to his vacating the house. This house would be an absolute dream for someone, but not us. Our Realtor pointed out that with $10k for a kitchen, $5k for new carpet and some elbow grease and the house would be ready to go. Since we dont' have $15k laying around we got out of there very quickly.