Sorry for the delay in this post, but I think I needed to give myself some time to deal with everything that just happened. I guess I will start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) - sorry I love The Sound of Music.
We decided to spend an entire day looking at houses - 7 to be exact. It was a grueling day, but we managed to find 2 houses that we liked, that both had pros and cons. We decided to go for a slightly older home because we loved the space and it had a finished basement with and extra full bath. We knew that it still needed some work in order to take it up to the standard that we wanted, but it was far under our budget so there was room to do that. The house had been on the market for about 30 days, and our realtor suggested that we offer $20K below asking as a starting point, with financing and home inspection conditions.
The owners of the house signed back at $5K below the list price. We in turn offered $10K below the list price and the deal was accepted. I guess we were a bit naive to think that was the hardest part of the process because it wasn't. Given this was the farthest we had gotten in an offer process - we were 90% of the way to getting our new home.
The Home Inspection
I couldn't make it to the inspection, so J and our realtor Andrew went along with a fantastic home inspector - Mourad from The Professional Home Inspections. He was incredibly thorough and extremely professional. I know that we would not hesitate in recommending him.
Going through the property again but at a slower pace allowed us to see everything in a better light and spend the time looking for issues. We were not anticipating however, the amount of issues that would arise. The place looked really amazing - and the renovations looked like they had been done by someone who knew what they were doing.
Our home inspector revealed however, that this was not the case. The electrical is the house was a mess and revealed live wires all over the place, the furnace was older than we had initially thought and needed to be replaced, the windows needed to be replaced, and there were a few cosmetic things that we were aware we needed to fix.
The major issue was the foundation - there were settlement cracks along one side of the house and water was getting in - which means moisture was getting into the basement - a very expensive fix. We were prepared to pay $20K for renovations that needed to be done, but this would involve almost $50-60K to get everything done - a cost that simply didn't make sense. Not only that but that only included things that the home inspector could see - who knows what was lurking behind the walls.
After a lengthy discussion, J and I decided that it was best to walk away and find another house. It was a pretty emotional day after making that decision, but we know that it was the best one for us and that our house is still out there somewhere. Stay tuned for my next post which will involve talking about compromise - an essential part of the home buying process.I guess I should get back on MLS and start searching!
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