Wednesday, November 14, 2007

I may develop a drinking problem

After spending days negotiating on a home while away at a conference (which I do not recommend doing) it looks like we've settled on an offer. To my absolute surprise and shock the sellers have agreed to remove the knob and tube wiring. Once we heard that, we were off! The very next day we had the home inspection as well as getting an estimate on home insurance (which we couldn't even discuss with them until the wiring was off the table).

So I spent four hours with an inspector. I first really paled at the $500 price tag but it was worth every single penny for that amount of thorough and meticulous attention to detail. I learned so much about that house and appreciate knowing all that I now know, especially considering the age of the house.

What did we find out? Well, in my mind, it was 95% good and 5% bad. Everything I expected to hear about being wrong or in bad shape was actually in good shape (roof, furnace, windows). While I knew the chimney had problems (we could see it in the attic) I had no idea, however, it would be so bad. Basically the whole thing in the attic and above has to be rebuilt. It is pretty much a fire danger right now and I'm pretty shocked it has been this disregarded for so long. My realtor thinks this is about $1500-$2000 in repairs but I'm a bit skeptical. But, either way, if the sellers don't fix it, we won't buy it. We certainly don't have that kind of money after closing to fix it... sigh.

I felt so optimistic going into the whole thing and that optimism grew and grew as we progressed through all of the good news in the inspection. It just plummeted to hell after the chimney news. Double sigh.

We'll see what the sellers say tomorrow, probably. We may get a chimney sweep in to inspect it (another $100?)... keep your fingers crossed for us!

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