Looked at some houses

Went out today and looked at two houses. For the sake of this, we'll call them Cole and Bethesda, just to make it easier to decipher what I'm saying.
Cole is a 2188 square foot house that was built in 1977. It is currently on the market for around $85k. The house looked interesting, I saw a lot of potential in it, large front yard with a decent sized backyard that is completely fenced in. It is a split level that has a second kitchen in lower portion, almost as if it could be rented out as an apartment. There is no garage or carport.
The house wasn't in great shape, whole place needs to have the walls redone (paint, wallpaper) and new floors. The outside has some issues too, and needs some work. I liked the size of the place for the price, and the layout is nice, but it seems like there's just too much work that needs to be done for the price. If it were 10-20k less, I'd definitely consider buying it and using that money to improve it.
Bethesda is a 2027 square foot house that was built in 1999. It is currently on the market for around $108k. It is in really nice condition and a good size. The neighborhood is completely secluded and withing walking distance of a really big park. It has a nice enclosed back yard, a big FROG and 3 bedrooms. There's a living/dining combo (I think) as well as a separate dining room that could be used as an office. There is a nice big 2 car garage with automatic door, lots of space for a car (or two) and a work area.
The house itself is great, but the price is a little bit higher than I would want to pay, if it were $10k or so less, I would be all over it. Right now it is up for short sale, so it is possible the house won't get any cheaper.
If I had to choose one of the two I would probably go with Cole. At that price I could probably get it in much better shape paying the $20k difference between the two. The size, layout, and area all fit my needs, but I'm hoping to find something that's just right.
My agent has sent me another group of 17 listings. Of them, I picked out 9 to go look at on Monday. There are a few that I think could easily be the perfect place for me, but I really need to look them over before saying more about them.