So we might be buying a place...

My girlfriend, who fortunately teaches in a state that compensates its educators, and I just agreed to terms on a townhouse nearby.

Considering the insane market — knock on wood, let’s hope the deal holds — we got it for an OK price. It’s more than I wanted to pay, but it’s decent sized and allows for growth. It’s not a fixer-upper, but the main level is straight out of Golden Girls. I’ll soon be learning how to remove wallpaper, I reckon. At least the basement has a bar.

The home inspection is tomorrow. Our financing is one step removed from locked in. Any advice from the SJ crowd? I’m a lifelong renter so I’m scared as hell but also kind of looking forward to this.

 

I advise looking for mold. Even in a nice place it can be well hidden.
The house we wanted was loaded with black mold in the attic right above where the baby would have been sleeping.
The owner argued with the inspector that it didn't exist, until he was shown the photos. An expensive problem to solve.
The guy wouldn't come down in price so we walked.

 

But when it's all done it's one of life's rare moments of harmonic convergence - it feels pretty darned good.

 

Correctomundo on the mold.
Where my kid is going to school, there's a roughly 2.5 million dollar house that is sitting vacant right now because of mold.

 

The inspector works for you, not the seller. Make him/her work, make him check everything, twice. Make him crawl under the house (if applicable). Make him climb onto the roof. Make him check the attic space between the ceiling and roof for termite damage. If he is good at his job, you won't have to make him, he will do it automatically. He should have a checklist that included everything that is needed to be checked out.

He probably will be able to give you his report on the spot. You guys can look over the results, decide what you care about or don't. Things that you care about can be written as "contingencies." You give the list to your agent, including price reduction to cover the contingencies. Your agent gives it to their agent. Then negotiations resume. They can either fix or reduce the price so you can fix. They can say, no, we're not doing that.

The last house we sold, the buyer gave us a list of about 13 contingencies. New front door. Our dog had scratched the door, so we checked the price of a new front door and reduced the price $400 or so. A couple of other things like strapping the water heater (it was strapped, but apparently not with official strapping). We fixed that. It was a City mandated ripoff: i.e. $15 for a 3-foot length of 2x4, a few wood screws and an official strap. With labor it was about $150. They said the glass in a sliding door was not shatter-proof because it didn't have that printed in the lower corner of the glass. They were wrong, it was printed there. They wanted a new furnace. They said the bedroom furnace didn't work and the floor furnace in the hallway was too old. We refused. We had disconnected the bedroom furnace because we never used it in 9 years. It was easy to reconnect. The floor unit was old, but it was one of those warhorse models that never broke. We used it about 6-7 days a year and it worked fine. Of the 13 contingencies, we fixed or reduced the price for about 8 and told them no on the rest.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the advice, all.

Besides mold and foundation and roof issues, what would you consider deal breakers?

The complex has an HOA. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Seems like HOAs are like unions, you love ‘em or you hate ‘em.

 

Have the place inspected in general. Your realtor should have a good idea of people who can help you with that. Basically, you need to know of any problems that will be A) deal breakers B) fixes that the seller should pay for (knock off of the final sale) or C) things that are not urgent, the seller doesn't need to worry about but down the line you will need to look into.

As far as deal breakers, when my wife and I bought a place, we actually got into contract with one place that was a flip. Everything looked nice until our contractor got under the floor and found they did some weird things with supports and had obviously cut corners in other areas. The fixes were going to be expensive. So we bailed on that house and found the one we settled on. The one we bought had an issue with the chimney where the lining was separating so if we light a fire, it will fill the house with smoke. We just got the seller to knock a few thousand off the final price to allow us to fix it ourselves. Because California has laws where you can't burn wood when there are certain atmospheric conditions (which basically is the entire winter), we never got it fixed.

Your deal breaker should be is the house safe, are there legal matters that you will become responsible for and are necessary (things you can't put off) repairs within your budget to handle. That is up to your judgement.

A good realtor should be able to walk you through all of that and advise you if there are major red flags.

 

If you get a chance, talk to someone who lives there and ask them about the HOA. It's some places their interference is minimal, but other HOAs really suck. They really try to control a lot of different things.

 

Maybe consider getting a survey, to make sure that you know where the property lines are. You don't want any surprises such as finding out your fence is on the neighbor's property, and vice versa.

 

Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood and not the best house in the worst neighborhood.

And schools will really help keep the value of the home up.

 

Your agent should provide you with the community guidelines once an offer is accepted. It's like a marriage; read the agreement carefully and you can back out if there is something in the packet you don't like.

 

Cruise up in an RV pulling a boat trailer (boat optional) and park out front on the street. You'll get a good idea how the HOA works pretty quick.