So my husband and I had a few requirements for our new house: 1.) 2-car parking (a valuable commodity in Canton) 2.) no rodents and 3.) reasonable taxes. You would think that these three things are simple enough that we would find a house, no problem...
This is not going to be a blog about our original real estate search, but long story short--any house in a good location with 2-car parking was going for more than $350k, and we decided that if we wanted a house done right, we should do it ourselves.
For those interested in knowing why we abandoned our pre-built house real estate search: As we were doing our search for a house, we had met with some rehab contractors, and we were a little wary of buying a rehab since they were basically keeping old wooden joists in most of the houses and also jacking up the prices by at least $150-250k more than the price that they bought them for. Everyone is also marketing this "historic house tax credit" in Baltimore right now. Basically, it says that that if you don't alter the historical style of your rowhouse, your taxes will be locked-in at the low rate that you purchased the original (a.k.a the "shell") house. Real estate agents and general contracting companies seem to use this tax credit as a selling point, and this helps them raise the sale price of the houses. I agree that it's a good deal, but if I'm considering this house as a long-term investment, after ten years I end up being stuck with high taxes AND the original inflated mortgage.
So we decided to do it ourselves...sort of. My husband and I knew nothing about building houses, so we needed someone to basically hold our hand during the whole process. We found a sweet shell at a location we enjoyed (halfway between Canton and Fells Point), and a development company to help us get the permits and the right general contractor.
