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The benefits of good inspectors
It's been a busy week on the house front. Looking back, it's downright astonishing that, as of this writing, it's yet a few hours shy of a week since the first time we looked at Mill St.
The thing about having really good house inspectors is that they efficiently disabuse you of the notion that you have found The Perfect House, which you must buy at all costs. Mill St. went much better than Edmands Rd. did -- there wasn't anything obviously devastating. The house has been decently maintained, and is in generally fair shape. But the roof of the addition is going to have to be ripped off and reworked (obvious ventilation problems), and the Masonite siding is at the end of its lifespan (Mike Scaduto sniffily refers to the stuff as "cardboard", and explained that it was pulled from the market not long after this house was resided). So we're about to drop the offer price a bit to compensate -- we'll see if the sellers bite.
Mike pointed out a few structural issues that made him nervous, so I brought in Rene Mugnier, a structural engineer he recommended, to look it over. The conclusion seems to be that there are some issues, but nothing clearly devastating. The chimney is ever so slowly and majestically falling off, but that can be fixed for a reasonable amount of money. The main beam over the garage seems to be slightly insufficient, so it'll be another few grand to reinforce that. There is some ongoing settling and related minor foundation cracking, but that looks more like a mild maintenance nuisance than a severe problem. There are some other matters of concern, but it seems to be manageable.
So far, the deal's still on. If they accept the revised offer, we continue to run at high speed. In the meantime, today is another day of gradually packing up the house. We've finally begun to really empty out and move some bookcases, which goes a long ways towards making it feel like we're making progress...
The thing about having really good house inspectors is that they efficiently disabuse you of the notion that you have found The Perfect House, which you must buy at all costs. Mill St. went much better than Edmands Rd. did -- there wasn't anything obviously devastating. The house has been decently maintained, and is in generally fair shape. But the roof of the addition is going to have to be ripped off and reworked (obvious ventilation problems), and the Masonite siding is at the end of its lifespan (Mike Scaduto sniffily refers to the stuff as "cardboard", and explained that it was pulled from the market not long after this house was resided). So we're about to drop the offer price a bit to compensate -- we'll see if the sellers bite.
Mike pointed out a few structural issues that made him nervous, so I brought in Rene Mugnier, a structural engineer he recommended, to look it over. The conclusion seems to be that there are some issues, but nothing clearly devastating. The chimney is ever so slowly and majestically falling off, but that can be fixed for a reasonable amount of money. The main beam over the garage seems to be slightly insufficient, so it'll be another few grand to reinforce that. There is some ongoing settling and related minor foundation cracking, but that looks more like a mild maintenance nuisance than a severe problem. There are some other matters of concern, but it seems to be manageable.
So far, the deal's still on. If they accept the revised offer, we continue to run at high speed. In the meantime, today is another day of gradually packing up the house. We've finally begun to really empty out and move some bookcases, which goes a long ways towards making it feel like we're making progress...
no subject
It took me three tries not to read that as /ree-zide-ed/, the past tense of the verb associated with residential.
(continues to keep fingers crossed on your account.)
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Justin, glad to hear the inspection went reasonably well. I hope the sellers accept the revised offer. (That's much better than letting them say "hey, we'll fix that for you".)