Home Inspection

'The inspection was yesterday (Friday) and went really well!  Chris went with the inspector because we want to be kept in the loop and know as much about the house as possible.  The owner happened to be home at the time, so Chris learned even more information from him.  And, the home owner got to hear first hand from the inspector what needs to be fixed.

There are only a few repairs that need to be made.  Luckily, it rained all day Thrusday and Friday, which left some standing water in the crawl space.  That sounds like a bad thing, but the inspector said if it wasn't raining, there wouldn't have been water in the crawl space and he might have missed the detail that there isn't a "positive drain" installed.  The seller has agreed to fix that and will have a plumber out there in the next few days.

The electrical panel box also needs to be looked at.  It's not had any problems in the past, but the company that made the panel (which is out of business now) has issued a warning that the breaker could be faulty and might not trip, thus causing the outlets to overload and potentially start a fire.  Again, that sounds really bad, but the owner has agreed to hire a licensed electrical contractor to inspect the panel, just like the company suggests. 

Our inspector said that the home is in wonderful condition overall and the repairs that need to be made would not make or break the deal in his opinion.  He was very pleased with this home (especially after the last one we had him look at) and said the home has been impeccably maintained.

So, with the good news of the inspection and the appraisal being the only item left on the list, our realtor called our lender yesterday and asked him to start getting everything in order for the closing.  If all goes as planned, we will own our very first home in 2 1/2 weeks!

Fingers crossed!!

We've made an offer on another house and have a verbal agreement!  The wife's job transferred her and the husband is staying behind until the house is sold.  Her job's relocation company has purchased the house from them and we'll be purchasing the house from the relocation company, so there are a few more hoops to jump through.  We've already signed the contract and the relocation company will have it signed and faxed back to us by Friday afternoon.  We have an inspection scheduled for Friday morning and are hoping it goes better than the last one.  The seller (the couple, not the relocation company) has already offered to repair anything that comes up in the inspection, so we feel pretty good about that.

Here are some pictures of the house.  We really like this one, so please pray that it all works out!!

The front of the house.

The front yard.

View of the living room from standing in the dining room.  The front door is on the right.  The stairs are on the other side of the wall (right as you walk in the door) and the downstairs bedroom and bathroom are on the other side of the stairs.  There are also two bedrooms and another bathroom ustairs.

The dining room.  The back deck is behind the doors.

The kitchen is to the left of the dining room.  It also has a door to the deck.

The back of the house.

The back yard.  There is a total of an acre of land.

Update

It's been a while and we figured it was time for an update.  Plus, this is the easiest way to update everyone without having to repeat the story a bunch of times.  So here goes...

We've been house hunting to purchase our first home for, well, a while now.  There have been many ups and downs and today brought another down, but I'll get to that. 

First, we found a nice little home in a quiet neighborhood that had a park and lots of woods.  It seemed perfect.  Frank & Patty came down for a visit the weekend we made an offer and they loved the house, too.  We all sat in suspense waiting for the realtor to call.  Turns out, the guy selling the house didn't want to budge on his asking price and would rather wait for a full-price offer than sell the house.  The price wouldn't have been so bad, except the house needs new windows and the basement isn't finished.  The seller is trying to price the house for the potential of a finished basement in addition to the new (and cheapest he could buy) appliances.  We replied with, "Sorry, we'll pay for a finished product, but we're not paying for the potential of us spending more money to finish your basement."

So, the hunt was on again.  We found a few more homes we liked, but felt that there was something better still out there for us.  Then, we found a great house in a wonderful neighborhood.  The couple was going through a nasty divorce and had damaged the inside significantly, but it was all cosmetic and easily fixed, or so we thought.  Our inspection was today and we found out the house is going to need $20-$40 thousand worth of work.  The list of repairs is long and includes: a new HVAC system, new carpet, electrical and plumbing work.  When our inspector turned on the water, a waterfall came pouring out of the ceiling in the half bath due to a cracked interior pipe (they didn't winterize the house).  He guessed that if an interior pipe is cracked, there are also exterior pipes cracked, but he couldn't access those pipes to tell us for sure.  His assessment is that we need a certified plumber and electrician to come out and fix everything before he could complete the inspection.  Plus, the seller didn't turn the gas on, so the inspector couldn't check any of that stuff either.  Luckily, we hired a really nice inspector who didn't charge us for the hour he spent at the house because he felt bad that he couldn't finish the inspection like he was supposed to.

Needless to say, we walked ran away from that house and are once again on the hunt.  Chris is spending the rest of his day at the OVC Tournament in Nashville with the pep band cheering on our women's basket ball team, and I'll be heading out with our realtor this afternoon to look at more houses.

We're getting pretty tired of the whole house-hunting game and are crossing our fingers that we find a winner soon.  We'll post again when there's more news, but that's all we have for now.