We are currently thinking about buying a house. This is without any doubt the biggest expense most people incur in their lifetime, and it's not one to be taken lightly.
We have been looking for more than a year already, at many different houses, in many different towns. After six months we did find a house we liked: it was big, it had a nice lot of land around it, and it was within our budget. It seemed perfect. The current owner was eager to sit down and sign the contract, but I wasn't willing to just drop thousands of dollars on the spot without the extra reassurance of a professional advice.
And with any big decisions, I always like to "sleep on it".
So I slept on it, and the next day I called Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis is a house inspector, a man that just by looking at a rooftop can tell you if it's going to last or if it's going to fall on your head within a year. A man that can smell mildew and termites as soon as he enters a room. Mr. Davis was also a man that never smiled. He was very serious about his business!
I asked Mr. Davis to meet us at the house for an inspection, and when he did, he didn't say much and went right to work. He looked at the basement, at the furnace, at the chimney, at the ceilings, at the roof, at the garage, at the stairs, under the carpets, inside the closets...
My husband was following him everywhere, while I was standing in front of the house with the baby in my arms, or wandering around the kitchen looking around just like Mr. Davis was doing. Except I didn't know what I was looking for!
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| Actual Picture of the "House" |
When the inspector had finished looking around he told us he was going to send us a report in a day or two. But he also added that the house was in pretty bad shape, and so he didn't recommend us buying it, unless we wanted to rebuild it from the ground up. That comment made us look at the house with very different eyes, and when we received the report, we realized that the house was going to be a lot of work and that it was not worth what they were trying to sell it for. After the inspection, the seller tried to lower the price of the house to entice us once more, but at that point we knew that the house was not what we wanted anymore.
In the end we didn't buy that house. Thanks to Mr. Davis, a professional in his field, we avoided making a big mistake that would have cost us so much money and headaches. And we didn't settle for less than what we wanted.
I love taking charge of my life and my decisions, but I also know when it's time to call in the "professionals"! Some things we can do on our own, but some things are better left to the people who know best. Like our taxes. And right now H&R Block At Home is offering a great contest: customers who
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