We were so enamored of the floor plan on the house we wanted to buy. It had a courtyard and a casita, or guest house that included a large bedroom, a walk-in closet and a full bathroom. The main part of the house had a master suite with his and hers closets plus an additional bedroom and bathroom.
We looked at three homes with the identical floor plan. One had what was once a water feature in the courtyard. This would require a bit of work to either restore it to its previous grandeur or more likely rip it out and replace it with a normal flower bed. Otherwise the courtyard, which was screened in was wonderful. They had upgraded the bedrooms to hardwood floors and they had upgraded the kitchen counters and back-splash even though I didn't like the back-splash. They also had a built-in work area in the room we would have used as our office. The drawback is that we share an office and this one only had one work area, not two. The Florida room was small and the whole house needed painting.
On house number two - same floor plan- although this one was reversed. The courtyard wasn't screened in but the double-size Florida room made up for that. This one had an "office" built in to the family room. Very nice, but I don't really need two offices. And the surface of the "desk" didn't match the Corian on the kitchen counters. The countertops had been upgraded from laminate to Corian but there was no backsplash at all. I would have wanted all new lighting fixtures, and I didn't like any of the wallpaper at all. (I know there are people who are going through my house as I write this saying "That wallpaper is hideous! It has to go!) But at least I'm offering a cash redecorating allowance - these folks were offering nothing. It backed up to the golf course - not close enough for me to tell whether it was a tee box or a green. Tee boxes are good - greens not so much. Anyway, it was very close to one of the gate houses and we found the location noisy.
Then came the house we made the offer on. Compared to the other two, this one needed nothing but paint. Or so we thought. I absolutely loved the tile. I could see that the color wouldn't necessarily appeal to everyone, but I loved it. The bedrooms had already been upgraded to wood floors and at first look, we thought all it needed was paint and to upgrade the laminate counter tops and tile the floor in the Florida room. And that is what the offer was based on.
But then comes our second look. Now we realize that "OMG, I couldn't ask a guest to use that bathroom. The tub needs to come out and be replaced." If the tub is coming out, the tile surrounding it has to come out. If the tile is coming out, you might as well replace the vanity. And if you're taking the vanity out, you might as well replace the toilet. Voila - a gutted bathroom. So now that I'd given that a closer look, we took a closer look at the other two bathrooms. Turns out the master bathroom needed more than a paint job, as well. But we were still in.
Then comes the inspection report. The water heater was several years past it's prime. The roof had bits that were incorrectly installed and was losing granularity. Gutters were messed up. There were patches to the screens in the courtyard. The laminated kitchen counter was de-laminating. We knew the oven didn't heat up to temperature but we didn't know that the microwave had been improperly installed. We knew that we'd have to install pull out drawers in the cabinets, but for a house that no one was living in, every cabinet seemed stuffed to the gills. I was concerned that all of that stuff would be mine to move.
And we were told that in Florida, if something is functional on the day of the inspection that you can't ask for a repair. In Texas you can ask for whatever you want. Nobody has to give it to you, but nobody stops you from asking. So we couldn't ask for a new roof, or a new water heater, or any number of things. We asked for the sellers to repair the things that were not considered "cosmetic". It probably amounted to less than $2K of work. But in the end, we had to consider that we'd be paying for all of that stuff, cosmetic or not. And we concluded that we were not going to pay top dollar for a house that needed over $50K in work and upgrades.
And none of this was helped by the fact that we didn't feel the sellers and their agent were acting in good faith. In addition to the ring doorbell, there were cameras set up throughout the house. They tracked you and I can only assume that they recorded our every movement and word spoken while in that house. (At one point, Mark unplugged it.- That summoned the neighbors.) Plus, they always waited until the eleventh hour to respond. I can tell you that if my agent called me to tell me I had an offer on my house, I would not be waiting til the end of my allowable response time. Seriously, you have three options. Accept, Reject, or Counter. Decide what you want to do and move on. These people waited until the last minute. Which in retrospect was a good thing. If they'd been faster, I might have ended up buying the money pit.
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