The Story of our House, Part 2
(Previously on The Story of our House, we had set up a home inspection on the Smith St property.)
(You can read part 1 of the story here.)
We moved our schedules around so that both M and I could be present for the home inspection on the Smith St property. My wonderful mother again agreed to watch the girls for the morning.
The home inspection was an eye-opening experience for us as first-time homebuyers. Our cute little cape, as it turned out, had some hidden problems. The gutters were clogged with moss and the downspouts were in poor repair. Drainage of rainwater in the yard had a general flow towards the foundation of the house, and therefore there was quite a bit of wetness in the basement that we hadn't noticed. The electrical wiring probably hadn't been updated since the house was built in 1955-- a possible fire hazard. The furnace emitted a cloud of smoke when we turned it on. The ducting around the furnace was the wrong size, and was probably sealed with asbestos tape. The washer was not hooked up to the septic system and drained into a hole in the front yard. The oil tank had been leaking and, although it was replaced by the seller once the leak was found, there was a stain of oil on the basement floor and we didn't know if the soil underneath the slab had been contaminated (which, as we found out, could cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up). The attic was poorly insulated. And the list went on.
After the inspection, we had some serious chats with our realtor and trusted friends. We really loved this house and the town it was in-- we wanted to make this purchase work if we possibly could. We knew that repairs like this were par for the course with houses in our price range. We also knew that some of these repairs could wait, but some were safety issues and needed to be completed before we could move in.
We started doing some research to find out how much the "safety" repairs would cost. I spent probably 15 hours on the phone (no exaggeration) trying to get my questions answered and get cost estimates. (My girls deserve a medal for their patience throughout this long, long, long process. More on that later.) We put together some requests for the seller regarding what would need to be completed by him before we moved in. Other repairs that weren't vital safety issues we included on the list, hoping he would at least take them off the price of the house.
We had already heard some dirt from our realtor on this seller; he had refused a lot of requests for repairs by previous buyers, and he had a history of being inflexible on the price of the house. He apparently had even hesitated about replacing the leaking oil tank for a while. Obviously he was interested in selling the property "as is". We felt nervous about pushing the seller too hard with our requests, knowing that there were two other offers still on the table, but our realtor advised us to ask for everything we wanted at first, and then negotiate after that if necessary.
We presented our requests to the seller late on a Tuesday evening. He asked for an extension until the following Tuesday to consider our requests.
We took this as a positive sign, since it wasn't an outright "no", so we signed the request for the extension.
In the meantime, we worried... and ruminated... and worried some more. We were pretty sure there was no way the seller would agree to all of these requests, given his history. Our only hope was that we had caught him at a time when he was desperate to sell the house. But we were running out of time-- we had about five weeks until we needed to vacate our current apartment. If this seller wasn't going to do the things we needed to make the house a safe place to live, we needed to know right away, so that we could move on and find another house.
After a few days we got tired of sitting on our hands. We called our realtor and asked if it would be within our rights to go looking at other houses while under agreement at Smith St. She said it was definitely okay to look, we just couldn't make an offer on any other properties until things were resolved, one way or the other, with our current offer. This was Friday afternoon.
That evening, M and I put the girls to bed and stayed up late scouring the home listings. We didn't find much-- at this point we had learned enough to determine from the listing whether the property was a "lemon". But we were trying to think outside the box. We looked at smaller houses (with only 1 bathroom!), in school districts that weren't as good, further away from work for M, etc. We found four that we wanted to see and sent them over to our realtor that night.
Our realtor set up all the showings for that Sunday morning (we happened to have the week off from church). My wonderful sister agreed to spend the morning with the older girls and C accompanied us to the showings-- she was a gem yet again.
This time, we knew what to look for. We closely inspected furnaces and oil tanks, walked up in attics and looked at insulation, checked out water heaters, and brought flashlights into basements searching for wetness. We eyed roofs suspiciously, checked gutters and downspouts, and asked about septic systems.
The first houses we looked at had definite issues. More aesthetic issues than Smith St-- 1970's wallpaper, avocado-colored bathtubs, and dark wood paneling everywhere-- and a few safety issues too (we found standing water in one basement, peeling exterior (possibly lead) paint, and a roof that needed to be replaced). We drove to our last showing with that sinking feeling that we had felt before... "This is what we can afford?"
We crested a hill and drove by a picturesque orchard, and wound down the other side of the hill on a country road. We passed by some beautiful (large, expensive-looking) houses, and our realtor's car slowed down in front of us. She stopped in front of an adorable, immaculate country home atop a rolling hill with a sprawling backyard and a beautiful willow tree.
"Surely this can't be it," we thought. But I could tell from the pictures we had seen online that it was.
To be continued...
Read Part 3 here.
(You can read part 1 of the story here.)
We moved our schedules around so that both M and I could be present for the home inspection on the Smith St property. My wonderful mother again agreed to watch the girls for the morning.
The home inspection was an eye-opening experience for us as first-time homebuyers. Our cute little cape, as it turned out, had some hidden problems. The gutters were clogged with moss and the downspouts were in poor repair. Drainage of rainwater in the yard had a general flow towards the foundation of the house, and therefore there was quite a bit of wetness in the basement that we hadn't noticed. The electrical wiring probably hadn't been updated since the house was built in 1955-- a possible fire hazard. The furnace emitted a cloud of smoke when we turned it on. The ducting around the furnace was the wrong size, and was probably sealed with asbestos tape. The washer was not hooked up to the septic system and drained into a hole in the front yard. The oil tank had been leaking and, although it was replaced by the seller once the leak was found, there was a stain of oil on the basement floor and we didn't know if the soil underneath the slab had been contaminated (which, as we found out, could cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up). The attic was poorly insulated. And the list went on.
After the inspection, we had some serious chats with our realtor and trusted friends. We really loved this house and the town it was in-- we wanted to make this purchase work if we possibly could. We knew that repairs like this were par for the course with houses in our price range. We also knew that some of these repairs could wait, but some were safety issues and needed to be completed before we could move in.
We started doing some research to find out how much the "safety" repairs would cost. I spent probably 15 hours on the phone (no exaggeration) trying to get my questions answered and get cost estimates. (My girls deserve a medal for their patience throughout this long, long, long process. More on that later.) We put together some requests for the seller regarding what would need to be completed by him before we moved in. Other repairs that weren't vital safety issues we included on the list, hoping he would at least take them off the price of the house.
We had already heard some dirt from our realtor on this seller; he had refused a lot of requests for repairs by previous buyers, and he had a history of being inflexible on the price of the house. He apparently had even hesitated about replacing the leaking oil tank for a while. Obviously he was interested in selling the property "as is". We felt nervous about pushing the seller too hard with our requests, knowing that there were two other offers still on the table, but our realtor advised us to ask for everything we wanted at first, and then negotiate after that if necessary.
We presented our requests to the seller late on a Tuesday evening. He asked for an extension until the following Tuesday to consider our requests.
We took this as a positive sign, since it wasn't an outright "no", so we signed the request for the extension.
In the meantime, we worried... and ruminated... and worried some more. We were pretty sure there was no way the seller would agree to all of these requests, given his history. Our only hope was that we had caught him at a time when he was desperate to sell the house. But we were running out of time-- we had about five weeks until we needed to vacate our current apartment. If this seller wasn't going to do the things we needed to make the house a safe place to live, we needed to know right away, so that we could move on and find another house.
After a few days we got tired of sitting on our hands. We called our realtor and asked if it would be within our rights to go looking at other houses while under agreement at Smith St. She said it was definitely okay to look, we just couldn't make an offer on any other properties until things were resolved, one way or the other, with our current offer. This was Friday afternoon.
That evening, M and I put the girls to bed and stayed up late scouring the home listings. We didn't find much-- at this point we had learned enough to determine from the listing whether the property was a "lemon". But we were trying to think outside the box. We looked at smaller houses (with only 1 bathroom!), in school districts that weren't as good, further away from work for M, etc. We found four that we wanted to see and sent them over to our realtor that night.
Our realtor set up all the showings for that Sunday morning (we happened to have the week off from church). My wonderful sister agreed to spend the morning with the older girls and C accompanied us to the showings-- she was a gem yet again.
This time, we knew what to look for. We closely inspected furnaces and oil tanks, walked up in attics and looked at insulation, checked out water heaters, and brought flashlights into basements searching for wetness. We eyed roofs suspiciously, checked gutters and downspouts, and asked about septic systems.
The first houses we looked at had definite issues. More aesthetic issues than Smith St-- 1970's wallpaper, avocado-colored bathtubs, and dark wood paneling everywhere-- and a few safety issues too (we found standing water in one basement, peeling exterior (possibly lead) paint, and a roof that needed to be replaced). We drove to our last showing with that sinking feeling that we had felt before... "This is what we can afford?"
We crested a hill and drove by a picturesque orchard, and wound down the other side of the hill on a country road. We passed by some beautiful (large, expensive-looking) houses, and our realtor's car slowed down in front of us. She stopped in front of an adorable, immaculate country home atop a rolling hill with a sprawling backyard and a beautiful willow tree.
"Surely this can't be it," we thought. But I could tell from the pictures we had seen online that it was.
To be continued...
Read Part 3 here.
I'm on pins and needles! :) Hoping this means good things for you!
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