My thoughts as they are coming to me........

2000- sq ft is not tiny - smaller than 3500 but certainy livable for 4

Those 2 teen daughters will be gone to college and/or independent lives before you know it

Is there room to build a garage? If so, can you create attic storage space in it?

I'd give up A LOT to be 3 houses from the beach. Adaptable is my middle name!

In your climate (SC, right?) those porches are like a gift - I assume not included in the 2000 sq ft.

Don't know how long you've been in your rental but even the best teens don't 'suck it up' for long - I'm guessing you have a considerate family and as a unit will adapt to whatever your living circumstances are.

Closets are an issue, especially with girls, but..... get creative - it can be done. And we all have too much stuff, anyway, right?

Something made you take the leap with an offer - listen to your gut.

I have no great ideas about how to manage the practical aspects of what to move. Make an inventory sheet from memory?

I don't know, but I'm excited for you!

Maybe right now the 2000 sq feet might seem small to you but moving from the really small rental space you are living in now, it will seem like loads of space when you actual move into it. To me location is first priority and sounds like you found a nice one. My only concern would be the no garage. We have 3 right now, eventually we will downsize to one.

Three houses away from the beach? Oh, yes! Maybe you need to get in your car and drive past it again today.Maybe ask for another tour. Do you have pictures? If so, please post!

What is so strange about the layout?

It's an adventure! Can you rent a POD to place at the new house?? Then when the movers come you could direct items either into the house or into the POD where you can deal with them later. Either that or have another rental truck on standby and offload things into it to be taken to a mini-storage facility that day.

Agree that 2,000 sf is hardly small, but someone screwed up only building 3 closets. Our '50s cottage only had 1100 sf. We added 500 sf a few years ago and included 3 closets in that space. Don't underestimate their value! Do your plans to purchase also include some remodeling to make the space more efficient?

In-ground pool = maintenance issues. Screened porches are wonderful and who wouldn't love that location!

No not crazy- crazy smart! and this is why:

#1- 3 houses from the beach, inground pool,screened porches.
#2- there is no #2! nuff said.

sure would like to see photos

You all are very sweet. I wish I could just go back and delete my original post. What an obnoxious thing to complain about. I thought thinking out loud about it would help the jitters but I'm afraid I just came across and whiny and braggy. I'm sorry.

The layout is odd because the actual living space is quite small. Much of the square footage comes from a poorly done garage conversion that is isolated from the rest of the house. There are a ton of doorways that also cut up the rooms.

Anyway, it's a short sale so who knows what will happen. If it is meant to be, it will be. The house has been pretty neglected. This picture shows the house in better days. (It is quite cute, isn't it?)

{{gwi:1525485}}

You didn't sound whiny or braggy to me - just excited nervous, and doing a reality check. As mentioned, location is everything - just about anything else can be addressed with time, $$ and sweat.

Our old house was about 2,000 - what we did was put flooring in the attic; I was some how able to fit all of my stuff up there. It got too cramped; so we moved.

We're probably looking at downsizing - hub just got bad news about work. I'll go back to a rancher but have to have a basement - garage would be nice.

The house is cute - what could you do to the inside to make it better?

I didn't think you sounded whiny or braggy to me either. You were expressing your nerves, that is all! Don't be sorry!

I love the house from the outside! Tell us about the kitchen!

I don't think you are crazy to downsize from 3500sf to 2000sf, but, as you get smaller in the square footage, layout becomes more important. If the layout is really poor and you do not have the funds to deal with making changes, you might want to seriously reconsider this house. If it's been pretty neglected, you might want to consider making layout changes rather than just fixing it up cosmetically.

BTW, I am an old house person, my house was built in 1888... I understand that old houses have layouts that can be charming in their peculiarity but it's something that you have to be prepared to embrace! And of course you are always weighing things against location and it sounds like the location is the real winner here.

I don't want to be a downer but that would be my only concern... there is a world of difference between a poorly laid out 2000 sf house and a well laid out one, whether old or new.

Personally, I would be much more likely to purchase the cottage than the almost McMansion. I agree with the poster who said you'll be a couple only again at some point and won't need as much space.

No garage would be a deal-killer for us. But, if, as suggested, you are able to do some remodeling, adding some closets and a garage, then it all sounds wonderful to me!

Your pool will get alot of use in your climate and I'm sure it will be great for the kids.

Please share with us as you move in, decorate, etc. Best of luck!

tina

I am in loo-oove with your cottage. And I will add another I didn't think braggy at all. I thought you were just worried about the move. so relax and quit worrying I think you have a forever home.

No, not braggy, just nervous and overwhelmed.

Our house is 2100 square feet for our family of 4. No garage, no basement (but about 400 square feet of cemented, 4 foot tall crawl space for storage, which helps). Three bedrooms with normal 5 foot wide, bifold door closets in the two smaller bedrooms, and double closets in the master. 1.75 baths.

We could always use more storage space, and I do regret not having a garage during the Chicago winters. But it has been fine for us, and now younger DS is in his second year at university, and older son just finished his masterâÂÂs, and was gone for 5 years at university except for summers. He is home now, but I am guessing as long as he can get a full-time teaching job, he will be gone again in a year or so.

The new house seems charming, at least from the outside, and the location and porches would be the selling points on which I could not turn my back.

Go forth and have new adventures. If after a couple of years it is really impossible to make it work, you can always sell and move again.

We left a huge house to purchase one in a town that is on the ocean. It was a small ranch with 3 bedrooms but we could see the gorgeous ocean and our beautiful harbor and that was the point. Today we're retired, kids are gone and we have the perfect home for two retirees. Over the years we added on a huge family room and a three season room. I'm so happy I have a home on one level which is easy to maintain.
After our kids had gone we bought a year round cottage in Maine surrounded by mountains and water on three sides. We bought it at the right time. Now our two homes are worth more than any stock or bank investment. Buying near water is always a smart thing to do and the benefits are blissful.

I just upsized from 2100 well laid out sq ft to much larger with just one child. It's heaven. I'd want to wait till the kids were older (ie gone) before down sizing, especially with teens.

2100 was small but it was so well laid out it worked....but 2000 badly laid out would scare me silly.

Not crazy at all. You say most of the sf area is in the old garage space, but not much sf in the living space. What exactly is/are the room/rooms in the old garage space?

I wouldn't worry about closets or no garage, that can be dealed with later, but if you don't have much room to mess around in, would you feel too constricted? That was my problem before we built on 600 sf.

We went from a 4000 sf home about 4 years ago to a 2200 sf home. It was such a charming and cute home, in a great neighborhood, but, the master had a small closet and no bathtub in the master. The kitchen was adorable, we totally gutted that, but I still wanted the open kitchen style.

We are now back to 3900 sf, and I do sometimes, feel it is too big for the three of us...until, we have kids over and I entertain some. Mine is only 7 years old, so not at the teenage years yet. But, DH and I, still think about a smaller house WITH THE RIGHT FLOOR PLAN. That it what makes all the difference to me. I have to have a good size master closet though!

I could give some of those things up to be by the ocean! Lucky you!

Sounds you've thought about what makes a good life for you. Closet space is not the secret in most cases :) (Not knocking closet space, mind...) In a smaller house you pare down to less stuff and hopefully get to spend less time finding, maintaining, using, and putting away that stuff.

If it's any help, I lives in a tiny rental house so small we had to put our dresser in the hallway. I loved that house. Some of the happiest times of my life were spent there. We lived simply and I had lots of time. Good luck with your move!

If you love the house (which looks great BTW), then make it work. I don't think you mention your teen girls ages, but they will be going off to college and you and DH will more than likely, be total empty nesters at some point. I think the location sounds great and I love having a pool. Many will tell you it is a detraction, etc. I don't think I could live somewhere (even the beach) without one.

When do you make settlement with it being a short sale?

Would love to see more pics, as the first photo was a tease. If the outside looks that good, I bet you could do a few interior things to make it better suit your family's needs.

And no, you weren't whiny, just expressing a concern over the new space and limited closets. Heck, I had limited closets, but that is easily fixed if you have a bit of $ to work with.

Update ...

First we were in short sell limbo. Now the house has gone from short sale limbo to foreclosure limbo. For the past month we have been told that the bank likes our offer but was just waiting on some paperwork so they could sign the contract.

Yesterday we find out that the mortgage department at the bank didn't know that another department in the bank was foreclosing on the home. Today. grrrrrr.

My husband went to the foreclosure auction. If we had a couple of days to prepare and scrape up the money, we could have bought the house on the courthouse steps for 75k less than our offer. It would have been an amazing deal. Now we have to start dealing with the foreclosure department, which we are not even sure want to sell the house at this point.

What a crazy mess. No wonder the housing market went to hell in a handbasket. Short sales/foreclosures are not for the faint of heart!

Dee; sorry things aren't going too good. From hanging at the real estate section I know short sales & foreclosures can be a PITA. I'm pretty sure someone (I think Linda) wrote a good post on them there a little over a year ago. From what I remember; you have to have an agent that knows how to play their games. It's brutal. You'd think banks would want to get rid of the houses but they don't.

There also may be a post on city data's real estate section

If it doesn't work out; it's someone's way of telling you it wasn't meant to be.

Ahh! I wanted you to get that house. Living by the beach would have been fabulous. Who cares what the inside looks like? You'd be spending all of your time by the beach! The house on the outside is adorable, too.

Granted, this is coming from me-- we are a family of 6 and live in a house that is maybe 1500 sq ft, maybe more like 1300. So, 2000 seems huge to me. We do have a basement (unfinished) and a garage. The garage is so tiny we can't fit our minivan in it, so we have to scrape snow and ice off every winter. I'm just glad I no longer have to put a chair out (which NEVER worked for me) to save my parking space in Chicago like I used to!

Anyway . . .I hope you get the house if it was meant to be, or maybe something even better!

I LOVE that house! Soooooooo close to the beach. But, moving forward...Is buying a forclosure then an option you hadn't considered? Maybe it opens up new avenues?