I mentioned earlier that we’ve been chasing this home for quite some time—about 2017. And for one strange reason or another, something would get in the way. It wasn’t about price; it was some odd, unexpected life curveball—as if the universe was saying, “Nope, not now.” Then, in early 2025, the planets aligned, but it sure wasn’t easy.
As you might or should expect, a typical home inspection of a 140-year-old house produces quite a list of issues. You should be prepared for and expect that; thankfully, we were. The dozens of items found were of no concern to us; we were, as anyone should be, mostly concerned with the home’s structural integrity: foundation, masonry, roof structure, and water management/drainage. You might expect getting answers to these questions to be relatively easy – wrong! Answers are hard to validate without a lot of exploratory effort, and you can’t just show up to a house you don’t own with a backhoe to excavate around the foundation to determine what’s happening. So you get a lot of speculation, options, and random thoughts you have to stitch into a plausible story- it’s more art than science. And more than anything, it depends on the experiences of those you’ve hired.
So long story shortened – we negotiated the purchase and set about our inspection process. The first round of structural inspections scared us to death, we got cold feet and backed out. It was an awful day, almost like a death in the family. Thankfully, several days later, the seller was able to provide additional information about previous work, good news – not great, but it enabled us to take a step back and reevaluate. So, after multiple structural engineers, masons, endless speculation and research – we did our best and took a leap of faith.
Will it turn out? Well, that remains to be seen, but at this point, we’re committed…
I can’t stress enough how important it is to have level-headed people surrounding and supporting you throughout the process. From the buyer and seller agents, engineers and construction experts, to the actual buyers and sellers themselves, there will be many ups and downs, so take a deep breath and hang on if you take the plunge.
