Home Shopping Summary Sept. 8

So we drove to Brentwood this evening to look at homes. Well, Brentwood and Discovery Bay. We went through 4 homes, and of that two were notable. A brief summary:

Beaver St.
Discovery Bay
$439k (overpriced)
3bdr 2bath
1692 sqft

Pluses

• The yard is pretty much finished
  
• Big living room
  
• Nice patio out the back door, covered
  
• Good neighborhood
  
• Backs up to park
  
• Large lot
  
• Attached 2 car garage
  

Minuses

• Galley Kitchen, would need to be redone eventually
  
• Overpriced, closer to $420k value
  
• Bathrooms are "70's style"
  
• No overhead lighting
  

Pippo St.
Brentwood
$420k
4bdr 2bath
1940 sqft

Pluses

• Large kitchen
  
• Odd layout is "easily" fixed by taking out 2 non-load-bearing walls, and covering a couple doorways
  
• After a bunch of mostly "cosmetic" fixes, it could be worth lots more (realtor says if the stuff I mention here were fixed, it would sell for $500k now)
  
• Large lot
  
• Attached 2 car garage
  
• Backs up to empty lot, curmudgeon owns it and has no plans to sell. Zoned for homes if he does sell
  
• Walking distance to elementary school and water park
  

Minuses

• Previous person did lots of work themself, and it shows (home depot cabinets, etc)
  
• Really odd layout
  
• Pool in backyard would need to be filled in (not a cement pool; fiberglass liner)
  
• Lots of backyard work to do other than the pool
  
• Fence is showing its age
  

So those are the two that we found the most attractive. Both would need work (one a kitchen, one everything but the kitchen). We're tending towards less work right now, so the Pippo house is rather unattractive in the amount of work that it needs done.

I like the yard and the layout of the Beaver house, other than the galley kitchen. Shannon doesn't like its bathrooms.

Of course, we're going to keep looking. But as a first day of looking, I think we did pretty good!