House stress house stress

[unicornduke]

We got the roof estimate yesterday and sent it to the attorney with our wants and finals and oh boy howdy things are getting weird.

a new roof is anywhere from 12k to 16k as quoted to us. Turns out the house had 3 layers of shingles what the heck. This house was not sold as-is so we could negotiate with the seller about a serious issue. The roof is a serious issue!

There was a list of other things that needed work including the windows which were also flagged as a major issue.

Our attorney sent the first offer to the seller's attorney of 12k credit to us.

Their attorney came back and said the seller just needed us to come down on that. uhhhh, that's not how negotiating works bud, even I know that.

Our attorney said we needed a firm number and their attorney said and I quote "I think she can do 1500"

shits getting weird! 

so F and I talked it over, we are willing to overlook all these other things wrong with the house if the seller is willing to credit back 6k, which is honestly, not a lot given when I talked over the list of fixes, we probably have 25k of stuff to be fixed with most of that being windows tbh, but a decent amount of other stuff to do. So for the seller to be so unwilling to work with us on 6k is just arg. it's a 290k sale! and yes, there's fees and commissions and other stuff. but come on

We'll see! we're waiting to hear back. If she isn't willing to do 6k, we're going to walk away. Yeah, we'll lose out on what we've paid out but come on. Work with us. I've got some fun adventures tomorrow so that will be a great distraction from thinking too much about this.

Comments

[graydon]

It's extremely common -- it's a design element in roof trusses! -- to plan on replacing the shingles by adding a new layer twice, for three total layers. Which is an indication that the roof really does need to be replaced because it's hit design lifetime.

People selling houses get really committed to the money in unrealistic ways. (and will often equate "nice" with "I get the monetary outcome I want".)

I'm sorry the stress is happening; I think you're being more than reasonable and I hope everything works out.

I could also wish various folks had figured out that emotional commitment to a purchase is a thing, but not a generally reliable thing. There's a lot of seller's advice that treats it as an effective compulsion.

(there's a certain lack of noticing that your generation is not hugely motivated by avoiding disappointment, too.)

[unicornduke]

Ah, interesting! I knew about 2 layers but didn't realize three. The other funny thing about it was the inspector thought there was 2 layers but the roofer said there was 3. Always good to get the experts in.

I mean, we want this house, we like it and it's really cool and interesting even if it isn't 100% a fit for us. But we aren't so committed to it that we aren't going to be smart about it. We just want her to work with us! That's all! Even in this market it doesn't make sense to rush these things.

It's also odd, we can't quite tell what's up with the sellers attorney and realtor. like they aren't super helpful but sometimes they can't seem to get answers from the seller. Like a weird vortex of unhelpful people. Like, the selling realtor didn't tell the seller we were coming once or twice and clearly the attorney didn't actually explain to the seller how the negotiation works and someone misinterpreted/didn't tell the seller that we could negotiate these things because the house wasn't sold as-is. But also the seller doesn't seem to be super willing to work with us/tell people things. and she's willing to say things to OUR realtor when we aren't in the room. So it's just weird.

The other part is that the only things left for us to do (I'm pretty sure) is get the appraisal from the bank and set up insurance. And we've got a month left before closing with no firm deadlines on those things. So we aren't rushing stuff.

I laid on the ground outside for about an hour right around dinner time with Mara and that definitely helped with stress levels.

[graydon]

I laid on the ground outside for about an hour right around dinner time with Mara and that definitely helped with stress levels.

You are exceedingly sensible!

The rest of the post is sensible, too, but that kind of practicality about stress is rare and enviable.

Real Estate, along with car dealerships, are how you make money on pure social skills. You don't have to have any skills with unforgiving material anything and it's been an amazing way to make money for quite awhile. So the feedback tends to fill it up with folks who are not especially clever and not especially skilled at not getting trapped in their own narrative. The occasional smart person very focused on the money can be extremely helpful, but is not the way to bet.

Then there's the three hundred and seventy seven separate varieties of generational politeness narrative. That can go fractally weird in totally opaque ways, because you'd have to know the person their whole life to have any idea what exactly is going on, and this isn't stopping them from expecting you to behave the way they expect. It sounds a bit like that's what's going on with the seller.

[ranunculus]

I agree about being sensible about stress. Also that 6K is a very modest request. Hope it all works in the end. We bought our place in SF "as is" and the first thing we replaced was the roof, and the water heaters.

[cerberusia]

Roof shingles and the US housing market are beyond my area of expertise, so I'm just going to say I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

[reeby10]

Oof, that does sound extremely stressful. And weird... like offering $1,500 on a $290k house is basically nothing?? Especially when a roof is such a big and important part of the house! I hope ya'll can get it resolved without too much extra stress.