Let The Stress Begin (DECEMBER UPDATE)

Ok, so I've read that there is a list of the most stressful events in a person's life.  The obvious are deaths, illnesses, financial hardships, marriage, divorce, etc.  Somewhere in that list though is purchasing a home.

This time around, I get the full experience.  Future mental note, don't try to get anything done in December.  Everyone is busy or short staffed or on vacation or out sick.  It's the holidays, the weather, it's everything.  And in December, it all lined up against us and it was next to impossible to get anything done.  Phone message after phone message, email after email, everyone had something going on and was putting things off until "after the holidays".  Don't they know we want to buy a farm house???

The one ray of light we managed to succeed with was an Inspection.  We were finally able to get an inspector out there, in the middle of all the holidays.... This is something we always wanted to have, our own inspection, not just the one for the appraisal by the Mortgage company, but the one to see what, if anything, might be wrong with the home.  Having been through the experience now and seeing the results, I would HIGHLY recommend EVERYONE do this before purchasing a home.  Obviously, you don't want to do it for every home you might be interested in, wait until you find THE one you want, and then have it done.  It's nice to know what you are buying and what will need to be fixed.

It also helps to negotiate price, if potentially major repairs are found.  You can either get the price lowered to compensate for that or have the seller make repairs beforehand.

For those of you that I missed expressing December best wishes, I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season, whatever you celebrated, with your family and friends.

Ours was great, knowing that NEXT Christmas, we'd be celebrating at our home in the country!