Thankfully, both of those offers were accepted for the top houses we saw on the trip. We pulled the other offer a few days into the process and went forward with a house on Cherokee Dr. in nearby Harker Heights. It financially fit, was a good amount of square footage, Kerry liked the backyard, I liked the sun room and we both liked the kitchen. So we paid for an inspection and I started adding it to my resumes I was sending out.
Once we got the inspection back, there were quite a few items that needed work but most important was the electrical system. The breaker box was recalled decades ago, was overloaded, several outlets were missing grounding, reverse polarity or not working. For someone that works from home, that would be a big problem. So we got an estimate back and sent that along with our counteroffer. It was going to cost close to $8,000 to replace and move the breaker box (which was in a hazarous spot close to clothing in a closet), rewire and ground all the outlets (several GFCIs were missing.) They came back with a $1,000 price drop and said that was the estimate they got.
So we had to consider if we were overquoted, are we getting a quote on his side from a friend who isn't going to be fixing everything needed, are the issues beyond the electrical going to add that much more to the price and what if there are more things that we don't know about yet. I should probably mention one issue specifically, the sun room.
I really want an area that we could put our workout equipment and, as you can see from the photo, you could watch the sun rise as you hit the treadmill or weights in the morning. Maybe we could even sit down and have coffee and watch the news a little afterward. But, being optimistic, there are a few holes in the windows in the room from small rocks? Or maybe BB's? There are also few outlets, little insulation and, if this is included in the square footage, it makes the interior even smaller than we thought.
With so many variables and what seemed light an offensive counter-offer, this Chippewa withdrew from Cherokee. It cost us for the expedited estimates and the inspection but it was worth it. We learned a lot and we will be using the same inspection company again. But I think that this was meant to be as, if we had gone through with the purchase, it would have cost us more to get a bridge loan until we sell the Henderson home.
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