DUPLEX

OK, so I think all of you know that our house has on offer on it. Some of you have asked...where are we going to go? Well, Dan and I have had this idea for many years now of buying a duplex, living in one side and renting out the other for about 2-3 years and then we would move on to something else. We think that now is the time for that to happen. For the past week we have discovered that buying a duplex is a lot harder than buying a single family home. The financing is such a joke. The banks are wanting us to have so much liquid cash and then on top of that pay an additional 3% for taxes...all this after we pay 20% down. We are still going to get a duplex but now we just have to find one that suits us the best.

We have found two that we like. They are both in a "duplex subdivision" on the southwest side of Bentonville, and they are right across the street from each other. We have given them each names so that we won't get them confused. The first one we looked at, we actually toured back in June when we were thinking about selling our house. It is formally named by us "White Vinyl" because it is the only one on the block that has white vinyl siding. It is two story, finished in 2006 and has never been lived in. It has an open floor plan on the bottom with granite counter tops, wood floors and a half bath. Upstairs there are two bedrooms, one with a HUGE closet, perfect for all the toys, there is a full bath in the hallway and then a master suite with a full bath and a huge walk in closet. The floor plan is mirrored on the opposite side. Each side is about 1700 square feet. See pic below of "White Vinyl". We did put an offer on it and they have countered but since we are still thinking about the one across the street (read below on that one) we have not put in another offer.

The one across the street is called "Marshall" and we happend to stumble upon this one accidentally. When we were with Karrie (our real estate gal) she took us to this one because it had a lock box on it even though there was no for sale sign in the yard. When we got in there she said that it was a repo home and that it wasn't for sale because a bank owned it and she wasn't sure which bank it was (apparently you have to have the bank's permission to go and look at a repo'd home). So we left. Later that afternoon, Dan went to the court house to find out which bank owned it and we found out that a bank in Marshall, Arkansas (about 2 and a half hours away) owns it. Hence the name "Marshall". Dan called his dad (who is a loan officer at the Bank of the Ozarks in Harrison) and his dad ended up calling them to get the scoop on it. Basically, we think that the bank is just wanting to get rid of it and that they are willing to sell it at or below cost!! We are still waiting to hear a price.

The floor plan to this one is slightly different and smaller than "white vinyl" but we like it just the same. It still has two and half baths, granite and wood floors. I think secretly I would rather have "white vinyl" because it is backed up against a huge greenspace that cannot be built on so the view from the master bedroom is beautiful. But I am seriously okay with either one. They both have never been lived in. Picture of "Marshall" is below.

So that is what we are in the middle of right now. Just waiting to hear a price on "Marshall". We have set a tentative closing date on our house for the 15th of October and we will try to close on our next place on the same day. We are excited about the change but boy it sure is a lot of work!