Alarms

The appointment that Josie had for her shot went according to plan. Actually, it went faster than expected and we went to breakfast at Jimichaels in Sun City following her procedure. There was enough time between that appointment and our meeting with the mortgage company to have a nice, relaxing breakfast while Josie recovered from her earlier anesthetic.

Our mortgage meeting went well and we have all the ducks in a row to get everything done by April 25 - our targeted close date. It was after noon when we completed that meeting and we went back home to wait for our review with the property inspector at the house which was scheduled for 3:30 PM.

Our review with the inspector was an eye opener and set off alarms in our minds. We knew about some of the problems as they relate to the age of the home. Many of those are cosmetic and really can be handled by ourselves over time. There are some that were discovered that can be deal breakers for us. The main one being cracks on the kitchen floor which could be very costly to fix, bad connections and equipment used with the hot water heater, bad valves and problems with the plumbing and another very serious discovery - the oven does not work at all. That sent up a huge alarm to us as we are wondering how anybody could live in a home without the use of an oven. There is no microwave, and the only means for baking is the broken oven.

The net of the afternoon meeting is that our schedule can - and most likely will - be impacted with the fixes that we are going to request. It can, literally, kill the deal if the sellers do not agree to perform the fixes. Our approach is to request an allowance for the floor, another allowance for appliances (there are problems with all of the appliances), and to request repairs on the plumbing issues and other problems that could develop into serious issues down the road. We do not want to be placed in a position to have these problems resurface when we go to get an inspection whenever we decide to sell.

Today will be very key to keeping this home purchase on track...