Buying a house involves a lot of paperwork. I am pretty sure that I’ve gone through an entire ream of paper just on the loan stuff, and my lender claims that I’m an “easy” borrower. But it looks like all that paperwork might be for naught.
So my house inspection didn’t go well. I really trust my inspector (he has told people to walk away from purchases before, and I like to hear that). He didn’t say that on this one. That said, there’s probably about $20,000 worth of work that needs to be done.
Given what I’m paying for this house, I want all those things completed properly before I sign anything. I refuse to take a credit on them. If they were small and I was handy, sure. But it’s not worth it to me. So now I’m waiting to see what the seller comes back with. If they’re not willing to fix the problems, I’m walking. I love the house, but there are other houses out there. I’ve got my realtor doing some more searches to see what else is out there while we wait. Based on the way the contract is written, I can walk anywhere within 21 days of ratification (last Sunday) for any reason at all. That’s reassuring.
I’m surprisingly not as bummed about this as I thought I would be. But I think that’s because while I love the house, I want my house to be as close to perfect as possible. Of course, I know there’s no such thing as a perfect house. But I want it to be in good, solid condition. Sure, things can go wrong, but I don’t want to move in knowing those things exist.
I’m really not sure what the sellers are going to do. On some level, now they know these problems exist, so they have to disclose them. On the other hand, they can simply say “Well, some inspector saw X, Y, and Z, but we can’t find any proof of that.” And maybe a lesser inspector wouldn’t find the problems. Who knows. It just depends on how badly they want to sell. They also might be willing to find a buyer willing to take a credit. That buyer just isn’t me.
So now we wait.
