First timers, got those I'm-looking-for-the-perfect-house-and-I've-got-those-inspection-report blues?
Let's say you're a first-time buyer looking for an entry-level home, whatever "entry-level" means in your area. In this area, it might mean $300k or $800k or $1.2M or $2M.
Let's also say that you're not willing to buy just any home. First of all, it's got to be a single-family home, a "real" home. No condos or townhomes need apply. And it's got to exude old-fashioned charm. Your new home can't be an ordinary home.
Or let's say it's got to be as new as possible—no old-fashioned homes need apply. Or let's say it can be old, but it has to be thoroughly updated—no Grandma's homes need apply. And, oh yes, it can't be on a busy street or near a freeway. And it's got to have a big back yard. And it's got to be in a nice neighborhood.
Whatever your perfect home is, you'll know it when you see it, and you won't settle for anything less. Sure, your head says you have to compromise, but your heart isn't buying it. So you look and look, but nothing looks good. Because the perfect home is hard to find in your price range—impossible to find in almost any price range. Or maybe something finally does strike your fancy, but your agent says it'll get five, ten or twenty offers and you're only willing to pay list price because, after all, the home isn't perfect perfect.
Then one day you decide to make an offer anyway, because every house you like gets five, ten or twenty offers. Now's the time to read the disclosure package. Now's the time to get a hefty dose of homebuying reality. Because the home you're stuck on, the home so oozing with charm it should be cordoned off with buyer caution tape, the home that's been updated to your standards and to a standard far beyond its price class, yes, I say, that very home, has issues.
In fact, it has problems. Maintenance problems.
The house diagram on the first page of the pest report has so many notations it looks like a crime scene. The total repair cost is thousands—thousands—of dollars.
The general inspection has a relentless and seemingly endless list of maintenance items, one after another, and what's scarier, this report doesn't give repair costs.
And maybe there's a roof inspection, and a chimney inspection, and a pool inspection, and all of them find problems problems problems. And all these problems problems problems have to be fixed fixed fixed, because you couldn't live with all these problems. And even if you could, the house might fall down and you'd be left holding the bag. Or no one would buy the house when you try to sell.
Problems that cost money to fix. Problems that require dealing with contractors. Problems you don't need. You've got to be practical. People get burned buying homes. You don't know any, but that's what you've heard. Next perfect house, please.
Okay, let's back up and look at this relationship meltdown from the perspective you'll have when you've seen inspections, not once, but four or five times.
No, let's back up even further, to the perspective you'd have if you could see the inspection reports for the place you're renting. Not that either you or your landlord would do any inspections, because neither of you care and neither of you are going to fix the laundry list of problems they'd uncover. Yet there you dwell, happy as a clam and oblivious to most if not all the deferred maintenance rentals are notorious for. I tell you this as someone who spent the first nine years of his real estate career in rental management. You can't fool me about the condition of most rentals, especially older ones owned by mom-and-pop operations.
But you don't know that, because there's no reason for you to. All you know is that maybe the faucets drip. You've never seen a house sliced open for inspection as if it was on the operating table. You don't know that it's rarely a pretty sight.
Now that we've backed up, let's move forward to the day you've seen four or five sets of inspection reports. Now you know that the first set of reports you saw were actually pretty clean, at least for a home that charming or updated and in your price range. Bling ain't cheap. Now you know that the pest report, lengthy as it was, was mostly small stuff. Now you know that the total repair cost, while it was thousands of dollars, could have been twice that. Now you know that the list of maintenance items on the general inspection report, while lengthy, could have been twice as lengthy.
Now you know, or at least strongly suspect, that when the seller bought his home he saw the same maintenance items you saw now that he's selling it, except for one or two he's corrected, that he ignored the rest, enjoyed the home for five years and then turned it over to the next owner still standing and marketable. Now you know that just waiting waiting waiting for what looks like the perfect home isn't enough. Now you know that you've got to get past a daunting list of maintenance items, and that the only way to get past them is to see them, time after time, until they become, well, not exactly old friends, but less daunting.
Now you know that you're going to have to approach buying your first home like you'd approach any other serious long-term commitment: with the realization that there's going to be baggage, and that there are going to be trade-offs. You get to pick the trade-offs, but you don't get to avoid them.
If your agent is smart, he'll tell you this, and you won't believe him, and he'll know you won't believe him, but he won't take it personally. Because he'll know it's part of the learning curve, the incredibly steep curve that can be scaled only by conquering fear and the unfamiliar, your own personal Mount Everest that makes a first-time home purchase such an achievement and rite of passage.