The good news is that I’m plowing forward on my due diligence tasks for The DIY House; the bad news is that I don’t officially even have this house under contract yet. The bank is dragging it’s feet getting the contract signed and getting me the addenda they require, and until everything is signed and the earnest money is turned over (I have the check in my hands), the deal isn’t officially mine.
That said, I’m moving forward as if it were. Unfortunately for me, this caused some issues today. You see, when we got verbal acceptance of the contract, the first thing we did was to put a lockbox on the property so that we could get access whenever we needed (it’s vacant, so I don’t imagine anyone minds). I normally get a copy of the key, and keep it in our lockbox. In this case, I moved the original from the agent’s lockbox to my own (so the utilities folks and my inspector could get in), but completely forgot to make a copy so I could put the original back in the agent’s box.
Well, this morning, apparently an inspector representing the seller stopped by to do a monthly walk-through, and the key was not in the agent’s box. AND, there was my lockbox right next to it, and he couldn’t get in there to check for a key. Long-story-short, the the seller chewed out the agent who in turn chewed out my agent (my wife), and now I feel horrible. I hate getting the agent in trouble, and also hate getting the agent pissed at my wife and me. Hopefully a small apology gift won’t be taken the wrong way…
Anyway, I also had my inspection today. No major surprises…everything I thought was an issue was, and everything I thought wasn’t an issue wasn’t. The couple things that I was unsure about (like the roof and the air conditioning), I’m still unsure about. Unfortunately, a lot of inspectors won’t get on top of a second story roof, so they rely on binoculars and other indicators (like the attic condition) to determine the condition of the roof. All indications are that this roof is okay, but there are some stains inside the house that are unexplained. They could be the result of backed-up gutters and poor vent/chimney flashing, but until I have my roofer up there, I won’t know if the roof is salvageable or not. And considering this would likely be a $5000 expense (or savings), it makes a difference.
Also, with temperatures hitting the mid-20’s today (am I really in the South!?!?), we weren’t able to test the A/C. It’s 20 years old, which isn’t a good sign, but the furnace (which is also 20 years old) is in good shape, so who knows. Luckily, A/C compressors are cheap, so I’ll probably replace it, as I will need my HVAC guy to do some other work on this one anyway.
Now that I have a good idea of the issues I’ll need to correct, I’ll spend some time putting together a Scope of Work and materials list. Though considering I don’t have the house under contract yet, I guess there’s no hurry. So, maybe I’ll just try to enjoy my upcoming vacation instead…that is, if you can call a trip to Buffalo, NY in the winter a vacation…
🙂
Don’t feel too bad — I got my agent chewed out also this year. When the selling agent showed up on closing day to get his keys and lockbox off, I already had roofers working with the roof off, and re-roofing the place. He raised hell when he got to the closing room, but we got him calmed down and that was the last I heard of it 😉
– Hakrjak