A Home Inspection Is Worth Every Penny!

Yesterday we went to have our house inspected with our new realtor.  The first time we saw the house it looked dirty and smelly, but we could deal with that for $149,900.  But we would never buy a house without a home inspection.  Our realtor called someone she works with and he met us at the house.

When we got to the house he was already there standing out front.  The first thing he pointed out to us, was rot in the front from termites, which were still there.  He then went on to explain how termites work.  As we walked around the outside of the house he noticed the front stairs were unusable, the back concrete stairs were falling apart and the bottom riser was way to high.  In the back they had put lawn chairs in front of spaces in the basement that they had closed up with plywood and the gutters were fixed with caulking that had turned orange.

As we went inside he noticed that most of the windows had no storm windows and the new windows were so thin and cheap that we would probably end up also replacing them!  The front door was inside a bedroom.  Another bedroom smelled like smoke, and the third bedroom had water stains on the ceiling.

In the basement there was mold.  The washing machine was hooked up to an outlet that was good for a hair dryer, but not a major appliance.  The "new" heating system only had a replaced motor from 1999. The oil tank was leaking.  And for some reason the realtor had to tell the owner to make sure there was oil in the tank so we could make sure the heat was working.  So she put very little in.  How were they heating the house?

When we first saw the electrical panel we were excited because they were breakers.  But come to find out, when he took the panel cover off, it was all done wrong with too many attachments.

There was a mobile home vent under the sink in the bathroom (illegal), ungrounded kitchen outlets, asbestos pipe insulation in the basement, iron rot in the cast iron pipes, and lead paint all along the perimeter of the house where they scraped it to make it sellable.

We figured out that with a 203k loan, that it would have ended up costing us $200,000 and it wouldn't be a $200,000 house after we finished.

Our realtor said we could bring our price down, but it was too much to take on.  (I didn't mention everything).  And when we got home, I checked the listing again, and it was down to $99,000.  Our realtor had talked to the owner and re-listed the property taking out "updated electrical" and adding in rehab loan, all in a matter of hours.   Then she emailed me 9 other properties.  Now that's what I call efficient.

We are going to see one tonight.  We are finally happy with our third realtor and happy with our inspector.  Who, by the way, gave us a $75 discount.