To Buy???

We finally resolved the inspection issues with our house...we're working on it this weekend with the help of my friend's husband Jason. He offered to come down and fix everything on the inspection report for FREE because he enjoys doing it and because my friend told him to help us.

How nice is that??? We're paying him of course.

The buyers realtor is paying someone to fix the stucco and remove the vines. We're not doing that because it's cosmetic...not required for the house to function properly. So everything is moving forward with our old house...we expect to be out of there on June 25.

Okay, so we had the inspection done on the new place. As expected, there is a laundry list of things that need to be fixed. We have to present this list to the sellers and depending on what they say, decide whether or not we're going to walk.

The first thing y'all should know is that this house is priced about $20,000 below what the other houses are selling for in that neighborhood. You should also know that we've looked at MANY houses (about 50) and NOTHING else fits our list of "wants and needs." Everything in our price range is crappy. The problem is that we aren't willing to go too far from the center of Denver so everything we've been looking at is junk. The old adage "buy the worst house in the best neighborhood" is really applying here...our new house has a bit of work in store for us but if we manage to do it, we could really be looking at a good house in a good neighborhood.

Here's the list:
*Needs new roof in the next 2 years
*Needs updated electrical
*Needs structural engineer to check why there's a slope in the dining room
*Possibly needs structural work done on the dining room...our inspector told us he thought it would be about a $5,000 fix
*Needs little things done like rehanging doors, exhaust fan replaced, windows pried open, screens replaced, lights checked, toilet re-installed, etc.
*Swamp cooler needs to be serviced (this one is a MUST for me)

So here's our options: we supply this list to the sellers and demand they fix all of it or we walk. Or we could offer to split the cost of everything with them. Or we could just fix it all ourselves...knowing we bought a "fixer".

If we walk...we'll certainly be homeless for a while. Our stuff would have to go into storage and we'd have to crash with someone...until we were able to get another house and god knows when that would be. How much would that suck with Maelin?

Our first step is getting the structural engineer out there and presenting the list to the sellers and see what they say. Do they just want to get out of it and hope some guy will come along and not care about all this stuff? Is that why they priced it lower than the comps in the neighborhood? Or do they realize we want the house and are willing to work with them to make the house right?

This is so stressful. We just have to wait and see.

Oh, and in the meantime, we'll be here painting and fixing our house. Stop by to say hi if you're around this weekend!