More formal into

cbzdel

Figured I would do a more formal into..

The name is Chris and I live in Tacoma, WA and I am 25 years old. My wife and I just bought our first house. We never thought it would happen but our city has its own housing recovery program. They loaned us $20k for a down payment. The catch, we had to buy a foreclosed home in a selected area, and we have to pay back the $20k but we have no payment due for 30 years and NO interest! Plus we get the $8k from government. So just to buy a house it cost us $300 for the inspection and that is it, we got a house and basically $28k for free

Next on the list is our cities "Weatherization" program. They give you up to $3500 for new windows and blow in insulation. The catch, you have to pay the rest of the bill yourself OR they have a financing program to fiance the remainder of the bill for 7 years with NO interest

Then with the weatherization program we can claim it all on the taxes next year as energy improvements.

Then we needed a new fridge, it was on clearance for $699, our state rebated us $75 because it was an energy star fridge!

No dont get me wrong all of this free money is nice, but I want to take advantage of it while I can! I dont want to turn this into a political thread though

We just painted the whole interior, now I just need to have a new front door installed (dont think I want to attempt that myself as the house is 70 years old) This summer I am going to reside and paint the house myself. The wife will be making improvements to the yard as well

The only problem I really need to address is that I have a detached garage and they installed a 2x6 pre-hung door in a 2x4 framed wall so the screws for the lock plates are not attached to the meat of the studs!! Not sure what to do about this...

Scuba_Dave

Nice, where are you located ?

cbzdel

trying to up your post count haha? says it in line #1 lol

Tacoma, WA.. born and raised

Jim F

I was stationed at Ft. Lewis Wa. almost 30 years ago. The Tacoma Dome was under construction then and near completion when I left. At the time real estate was relatively expensive there. I wouldn't think a front door would be too ambitious for an aspiring DIYer. The more you understand about home construction and the various systems in a house, the less intimidating it becomes. If the house is that old, you might consider rehabbing the old front door. I get a lot of compliments on my old front door as it has a lot of character they don't build into newer doors.