House Changes--Part 5

After a long time in planning and a short time in looking, Ward and I put an offer in on a house. And then we waited a couple of days to see what the seller thought of our offer. As expected, she countered with a higher price which we accepted. And we were off to the races.

There were document after document after document to be sent to the lender. Title companies to be contacted. Home inspections to be scheduled--first the house, then the radon, then the septic, then the termite,  Money for a survey. Money for this processing. Money for that paper. Money for this search, Money that inspection. Those of you who have bought a house know how it is. There is a lot involved. And a lot more after that. We have been meeting with our agent almost daily to sign another paper and follow up on contingencies.

The inspector found a badly leaking window here.

So among this flurry activity, the next big hurdle was the house inspection. The house looked pretty solid, but you never know what goes on behind the walls, so to speak. We met with the home inspector on Sunday at noon. (People buying and selling houses don't seem to keep any regular business hours.). He was a personable fellow that seemed to know his business. Luckily, Ward has some knowledge in the way houses work, so he was another set of eyes and ears that was examining things with the inspector. I tried to pay attention, but I have to admit, my mind was often in other places. I was trying to figure out how our furniture would fit in these new spaces and what I would want to change. At one point I took a trip to the closest grocery store to see how long it would take to get there--8 minutes. Pretty good.

The inspection that was supposed to take a couple of hours took almost five. I'm not sure why because there was no down time. I guess you could say that he did a very thorough job. The conclusion was that it was a solidly built house but it had some wear and tear on it. There were leaky windows, rotten wood, unsafe electrical panels, and high radon levels to list a few things on his report. Fourteen things in all that he recommended be fixed. But none of it was bad enough to scrap the deal. Things on houses wear out all the time. And safety codes change over time.

So we went back to the seller and asked for four things to be fixed. And she said she would give us a little money toward the fixes, but the house was good enough for her so it should be good enough for us. And once again we accepted it. It didn't sound like she was in a bargaining mood.

So the whole thing was becoming real and I started to aggressively get rid of stuff in our current house. There was a LOT to be done before this house was ready to go onto the market. The task seemed impossible to me. Especially in the middle of the night.

Until next time...