House buying

We did it, somehow we pulled off the deal. My Wife and I close on the house next Friday. The best thing about it is that the deal was on life support for a couple of weeks. After we had an inspector kick the tires of this house, and a contractor give an estimate of how much the cost of repair would be, we went back to the seller.

this is the part of the negotiations where we ask them to fix stuff or the deal is off. well as it turns out he now lives in Maui, so he can not fix stuff. so we say "fine lower the price."

his response "I can't." my jaw hit the fucking floor at that point. as fate would have it he was just barely making enough money from our sale to pay off the mortgage, and he had no extra personal funds to lower the price of his own accord. basically the guy was broke, and when we stumbled across him, he was a step shy of foreclosure.

in my personal correspondence to the seller of this house he said he was shocked and saddened by then inspection report, and regretted turning the home into a rental (which is a direct cause of most of the damage to the house). easily forgiven. my solution was to have him turn to family. Beg, borrow, and steal, pass the collection plate at church, and cash in whatever hidden away investments he had. if he wanted to keep the deal alive, I would need at least a certain percentage of the repair costs covered.

low and behold the SOB came through.

once again, I have to emphasize, this process of buying a house is not for the weak of heart. you have to be tough, keep your options open, and be willing to make compromises. sometimes you will get fucked over by things that are completely beyond your control. other times houses that you thought were "it" turns out to be junk after the inspection. Other times you just find completely inflexible sellers. the current buzzword in this economy is "as is" where a seller is unwilling to make repairs. so many listings I have had to go through have had this phrase in their listing.

Warts and all should apply to relationships with people, not with homes.

anyway, we close next week, and we are going to move in over the weekend, followed by renovations. let the next chapter begin.

Stay renters folks