We offered for the second house and, after they went house hunting, they accepted.

Because of all the houses that needed foundation work in New Town, I decided we should have the foundation checked. That turned out to be a good plan. There was a lot of damage that I didn’t notice them having fixed (though I did see one place). The house needs $12,000+ of foundation work done. That’s not horrible ($40K is horrible), but it’s pretty substantial. And I’m not paying almost full price for the house and for the foundation work. So if they won’t pay for the foundation work, we won’t get the house.

Now that I’ve said that, in a way I thought I would be relieved. But, honestly, it’s the best house for us we’ve seen on the market. I haven’t really looked at everything, if the house was on the edge of a bad neighborhood I didn’t look at it, but I did look at everything in a good neighborhood in our price range. There is one house that’s on the edge of a bad neighborhood, but also in a good neighborhood that I didn’t look at. I kept asking H to go look but he didn’t want to add another choice to the mix, so we didn’t. But there’s nothing else in town that’s solidly in a good neighborhood to look at.

So if they don’t take the foundation work off the cost of the house, then we won’t have a house. H had said we could offer for my favorite one, but I don’t want him to be feeling buyer’s remorse over something as big as a house either. So I’m thinking I should find a cheap place to rent (found one on Craig’s List for $350/mth) and just live there for a semester. Keep looking.

It has the advantage of meaning I don’t have to move this summer but also means I’ll have to keep looking. That hasn’t been as fun as I had thought it would be. Plus, that means we are counting on something good coming open at the right time, or buying it a bit early or late. That’s fraught with difficulties of its own.

I have focused on the negatives of our house in my mind, but it really has some strong positives. Cool address. Amazing kitchen. Cute yard. Nice trees. Big den. Big living room. Two offices. Despite the colors of the house, I do like it a lot. It was one of my top three choices all along. It never dipped below third. (Update: Actually 5th, but it did always stay on the top 5 list.) So obviously, before we made the offer, I could see the good points.

The “bad” points, besides the repair issues, which aren’t really an issue because they are pretty much yes or no, are cosmetic and the fact that we are downsizing. Now, we wanted to downsize. Really. Even I did. It’s just hard. And seeing where you are downsizing to makes that more obvious. The other thing I don’t love about the house is the paint job, but I can repaint. And H has agreed to me repainting, so that’s not a problem.

So I really do like this house.

And I’ve gotten all excited about it and shown it to all my friends on Facebook. But we might not get it because it is going to mean that they have to come down on their price and I am not sure they will, especially since the house they want to move to is $$$ already and outside their price range. If they have to eat the money for the foundation work, it’s really going to be outside their price range.

I’m waiting for the rest of the repair needs to come in before I talk to them about it. The house inspection was today. We should find out about the roof, a/c, etc. later on today or maybe tomorrow morning.