This Old House
It's time for another overly verbose round-up of our home buying process. :-)
The last I wrote, we were waiting for the home inspection. That came and went this past Friday, and we had until the end of business today to complete the next step - sending in a list of requested repairs that we'd like to see from the seller. This house was built in 1982, and clearly hasn't had much done to it in the way of maintenance (or sprucing up) in at least 10 years, if not longer.
As such, our home inspection didn't uncover any one major thing, but we did run into many minor things: broken garbage disposal, broken sprayer on the kitchen sink, missing closet doors on 3 closets, a cracked mirror closet door in the master bedroom, a non-functional handle on a faucet in the master bedroom, a bedroom with a door frame that was damaged ("violently" in the words of the inspector), dry rot on some fascia, a bedroom door missing the entire handle assembly, a missing smoke detector, wall damage behind one toilet, a non-functional solar water heater, a non-functional evap cooler, massive mildew/mold in the master bathroom shower, 2 leaks on the patio roof, a minor roof leak, etc. etc.
Because we're not in a strong negotiating position, there's not a whole lot we can do but ask for fixes or money back in consideration for fixes. The general idea is that if they don't want to do anything (which is certainly their right), we can either walk away or live with it. Given that most of these things are each minor when taken one by one, it probably doesn't make sense to walk away.
But between you and me, internet, if they totally balk and do nothing, I think we could potentially bluff like we're pulling out to get them to negotiate. They're pretty desperate to move out for financial reasons, and our proposed closing date is under a month away now. We're under no such fixed deadline or financial pressure - our lease is up April 1, but that can be extended month-by-month. We've also seen one or two houses come up each week that are interesting. The prospect of going through the same-day-offer bidding war crap again isn't appealing, but neither is buying a house that will turn into a money pit right off the bat.
Still, hope springs eternal that the sellers will take some responsibility, since their neglect is the main factor behind all this.
Comments
The seller who owned this place before we moved in was pretty motivated, though she didn't have a gun to her head for any reason. Like with you, there were a few things that we needed to see fixed or upkept, and it gave us some wiggle room on the price, but not a lot.
The upshot is that three and a half years later, we've seen a 35 percent or so rise in the property value. Not counting the improvements we've made, like the fenced-in yard and the finished basement office.
Posted by: flargh | February 15, 2005 09:28 AM
I'm guessing they won't reject the idea completely. Sellers usually look around at what obviously needs repairing and factor that into their asking price.
Nor do I expect them to meet every demand. They'll probably offer a lump discount which won't cover everything you found, and they may fix a few of the easiest things to make the list seem smaller.
Having said that, the people we bought our house from tried to address most of our complaints, although sometimes they merely applied a cosmetic fix. Occasionally you will meet someone in this world who sincerely wants to be fair. Maybe you'll be as lucky.
Posted by: Matt Diamond | February 15, 2005 12:09 PM
Well, you can't say that not accepting any of it means the seller isn't being fair. The selling price takes that wear and damage into account, especially in a hot market. It's nice when they do, but in a market like that, they could just refuse and odds are they could find a new buyer who can close in 2-3 weeks.
Posted by: Humbaba | February 16, 2005 08:50 AM