Well, buying a house is definitely an emotional roller coaster. And this one has (luckily) been a rather quick process so far. Still, the waiting game is never fun, and we've done that a few times in the last month.
So, we put our offer in for the house and went back and forth with the seller for a couple of days. Since it's bank owned, we didn't feel guilty what-so-ever about offering much lower than the asking price and sticking to our offer. The reality is that we can't go much higher than what we offered anyway, unless we want me to take on a second job. That is certainly a possibility, since I am considering nannying again once we're settled, but we don't have anything locked down and don't want to depend on an income before we have it.
So, we made the offer, the bank came back with a joke (barely lowered at all), we came back with a slightly higher (but not by much) offer and said if it wasn't accepted, we'd walk. They came back with another joke of an offer and we said no thank you. 24 hours later, they agreed to our offer, with a slight change in what they're paying in closing costs, so we took it!
The next (and hopefully last) major hurdle was the inspection. We had it Monday and it had some not so good news. The house is in alright condition, but needs lots of little repairs (which we expected, since it was built in '72) and 3 MAJOR repairs. The roof needs to be completely replaced ASAP, all of the siding is showing signs of dry rot and needs to be replaced and the furnace doesn't work (though that could be a minor repair, it may be just because the house has been vacant for so long). So, it could be 15-20 thousand dollars worth of repairs, which we do NOT have. So, we wrote up a proposal for them to take care of those 3 things and we'll do the small stuff. The other issue is that the people who lived there tried to do a lot of upgrading and home repair themselves and, apparently, didn't have a clue what they were doing. So, we'll be doing some tearing down and (down the road) replacing those things. They're nothing necessary, just things that would have been nice. (example, the covered patio and the laundry room added into the garage)
So, now we're waiting. The bank did get back to us really quickly and say that it's possible, and to get an estimate, which our realtor said is a good sign, so we're working on that now. Hopefully they will replace it all or we'll have to walk away. But, I haven't given up hope yet!!!
2 comments:
Good luck!! I know how stressful that is! Our house had about 12 thousand worth of repairs that had to be done and luckily the bank agreed to pay for it for us! I hope they do the same for you! Just remember that repairs take way longer than they tell you (at least they did for us!)
Yes, I know. But, we have the luxury of staying in a place that we don't have to be out of in a hurry. And, the longer we're here, the more we can save up, since we're not paying rent!!
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