Listining

I have said it before and I will say it again. If you listen to what the world is telling you, you will be guided in your decisions. I am not saying that the right answer will be yelled to you by people you pass in the street. I just believe that the clear answer will come to you with time.



"THE House"  #2

The most recent example of this just occurred in our home-buying saga. As you may know, S and I are looking to buy a house to hold us over until we can move onto a boat in about 13 years. We looked at one about a week ago, just before we went on the 2012 Boat Trip. Our realtor found it for us on Wednesday and we went for a quick look  Wednesday night before we headed out Thursday morning. S fell instantly in love, (She said it was THE house of her dreams, just like the previous one we put an offer on a couple of weeks ago), with the house and her girls T & M liked it as well. I was indifferent with it as the house was nice, clean, redone and ready to move in, but did not have the special something that I would like. We were there about 20 minutes. On Thursday, we decided to make an offer and our realtor faxed us the paperwork at the Presque Isle marina where we were Thursday evening. Actually, it took her about 4 tries to fax it to us. On Friday, we tried to fax it back from the Roger City marina. We tried 3 or 4 times. The we drove to hotel and managed to send it from there. I told S that I was beginning to get the feeling that somebody was telling us something because of all of the trouble it was to send the fax. She said I was being silly.

The buyers rejected the offer and countered.  We countered and finally agreed on a price (considerably higher than I believed the house to be worth and way too close to the original asking price), and by Monday evening, I had another paper to sign and send back. I managed to print out the email from the realtor and sign it, but I could not get my scanner to work. I could hear the voices tell me to hold on again. I finally had to drive to work to scan the documents back to the realtor. I should have listened. Tonight, we met the realtor at the house and a home inspector at the house. (Note: I am fully capable of performing a house inspection, but I like to have an independent person involved who is looking analytically, not I, who was looking with my heart and checkbook). I was fully prepared to write the deposit check tonight. I did take the opportunity to measure and photograph each room. When I got to the basement, the first thing I noticed was that the basement wall had all sorts of metal plates tying the wall back and basically preventing the house from collapsing. I do recall seeing the plates last week, but they did not really register what they were.

See the large metal plates on the wall behind the freezer that tie the wall back
 

I immediately put a halt to the inspection and told the realtor that the defect in the foundation wall was a fatal flaw and a deal breaker. S was disappointed, but she understands. I explained that the repair was not performed correctly and was equivalent to sticking a band-aid on an amputated limb.

If I had listened to the signs of the world, realized that troubles with the fax, and the higher price and everything were yelling at me, I might have saved a bit of stress, and the money for the inspection.  It was kind of clear at the time and blatantly obvious now that this was not the right house. On to the next one.

For the record, the inspector agreed with my assessment of the half-ass repair. It could be fixed correctly, but would require the house to be jacked up and the wall torn down and rebuilt. I don't want to dump that kind of money into a house to just make it an OK house without that special something