Fickle

Inspirational song: Help! (The Beatles)

Pardon my French, but alors, merde! We really do not know what we want. We talked to the man who evaluated the brick house foundation. This guy actually blamed all the foundation problems on the neighbor's house, which is also for sale, that has had a missing sprinkler head for weeks (months?) and has been dumping gallons of water on the bedroom side of the house daily, keeping the ground saturated. This man said to us, scout's honor, "this house is one of the better ones I've seen lately. No real structural problems to address with the foundation at this time." First off, what the hell is out there on the market right now? Secondly, this counts as no problems? With the patio sinking, tipped towards the house? And all those wall cracks and z cracks in the brick are okay?

After that odd phone call, we decided to bail on our tour of the town at the farthest north end of our range, and came back to walk through the brick house, to see whether it would talk to us. It did, but we are having trouble interpreting its desperate scream. Was that "please help me, save me from these incompetent repairs," or "run away, save yourselves"?? We were told the broken roof rafters were fixed, and we received emailed pictures. The man climbed up in the attic over the garage to assess the repair. He could tell immediately that it wasn't right, but it wasn't until he and our realtor managed to get the inspector on the phone that we realized just how bad it was. The inspector saw the photos, and said stay at the house, I'm on my way over. He climbed up in the attic and explained the sistered beams were sandwiched with 3/8" interior grade strand board, glued in place, and affixed with staples. As I explained it to the kids later in the day, they might as well have plastered the broken trusses with hardened oatmeal for as sturdy as they were. But the inspector said it was worse than that. Because the "repair" was glued and stapled in place a hundred times over, it was no longer repairable. Now the only way to fix it correctly such that the entire roof is not in danger of collapsing is to hired a licensed, insured roof repair company (NOT a DIY project), to come in from the outside, ripping off several feet on either side of the break, and replacing all the broken trusses. This is going to take between 6 and 10 thousand dollars. We are doubtful that the seller will come down that much in cost, especially since we suspect it was he who did the sister job that damaged the roof beyond repair.

Here's where it gets more interesting. The field house is wonderful, but we know for certain that it has serious defects in the garage. After pulling the comps for what has sold since spring, we know it is probably listed low compared to its worth. Comps have been coming in an average of 10 to 15 thousand over list price in that neighborhood, on houses of similar size and age, with lots a quarter of an acre and bigger. The extremes are right around list and 60 thousand over. (Yes, sixty.) Fifteen over puts us at our all-in, not much left for closing costs, forget repairs. There's no telling what that inspection would return, assuming we could compete and win that house. Bids are due Monday at 11 am. We have so little time to decide what to do, and we really don't know what we want.

We wandered the grocery store this evening, hangry and stressed out. I told the man, I'm not comfortable going more than 12 over, and I feel like offering only 11,100 over. I mused aloud, does this mean if we offer that amount, am I sabotaging myself, and forcing myself to stick with the original house? In the 2 weeks since we got the first contract, house prices have gone up another 10,000. If we abandon the bird in the hand and can't get the new little house (in a city we don't know well), and we lose both of them, we will be screwed. We will have to pay even more for the next house, and it could have bigger problems than all the ones we have currently.

Has it really only been three weeks since we got here? We have lived through a year of stress in that time. Holy crap.