Purchase a mansion for the price of a cheap house! Moving into our dream home was interrupted by a sudden health issue. But this church building, located in the small town of Delft, Minnesota (Southwestern Minnesota) could be your dream come true! Perfect for a large family or even multi-family. A professional gas oven and stove in the large basement, along with a big kitchen and a couple of thousand square feet of living space (which includes separate utility rooms and a study)! The floors above the basement feature a sanctuary with oak pews (and two church organs!), a bedroom with 1/2 bath adjoining the sanctuary, a lobby area with a washer, dryer, and insulated water heater, and three other large rooms adjoining the far end of the sanctuary (a study, library, and classroom). The crown jewel of the upper floors is a newly created apartment which features a kitchen, family room, large bedroom with a spacious walk-in closet (!), and a nice-sized 3/4 bathroom with plenty of storage cabinets! That area also has a separate furnace and ducting, making it possible (in theory) to live in the apartment during the winter with the basement furnace turned off. The apartment has a separate, very large insulated water heater (the water heater in the lobby). One thing we noticed while inspecting the building was how solidly it's built. Makes sense when you consider the liability and possible stress of hundreds of people running around in a church! The attic interior structure with its maze of crossbeams looks like someone was expecting an earthquake or maybe a meteorite strike! The lot size is perhaps slightly less than an acre. Parking is in back. A large grassy area would love to have some trees or perhaps a lawn, but is presently just grass with some gravel. New furnace for the apartment area; separate furnace for the basement (presently one of two furnace units in the basement is working), plus a water heating system for rooms on the north end of the building. I kept the one basement heater set at 45 last (frigid!) winter, which was sufficient to keep the pipes from freezing. The greatest challenge of this building – in all honesty – is winter heating. It seems possible by directing heat where it's needed to avoid heating bill shock, but we did not spend last winter in the building so I did not figure out the ideal way of dealing with the heating situation. During one of the coldest winters on record, I averaged around $200 a month (thermostat set at 45 degrees). I did not run the apartment furnace. With that caveat, the potential of this place is beyond belief. If only I were younger and healthier, I would love to make a home out of it. As it is, I'm afraid I bit off more than I can chew. But for someone with some energy and decent health, this could be paradise! Live, run a business, lease out part of it...use your imagination! Please feel free to contact me and ask questions (jlolson53 at gmale). My guess is that a bank or mortgage broker would be rather confused about financing this church building. You probably should plan on cash. I would consider owner financing with a 20% down and five-year payment term. Please understand that this is a church building and that you probably will need to be a special kind of person – the type who's not afraid to think outside the box (or desires a LOT of home for the buck!) – to want it. I looked at so many small, junk houses in this price range which this building completely destroyed! It could use some work here and there, but you could live in it right off the bat. My plan was to add a couple of ¾ bathrooms and a garage in the back. Not so difficult, but I'm afraid I ran out of energy and time.
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