A parade of men

I've probably been in this house more times than any perspective buyer has ever been in their future home. After meeting with the home inspector and half a dozen contractors, my new lender decided to throw out the original inspection and schedule an FHA/HUD inspection. The upside of this being that the only repairs required would be the ones this inspector reported. Our repair list went from 61 down to just 2 pages!

Some of the requirements made sense- the ground around the foundation needs to be graded to direct water away from the house, the wiring needs to be updated, etc. However, some of the requirements were jaw dropping ridiculous. For example, the current heating system is a whole house furnace with vents in the living room and hallway floors. There is a vent in the floor of the 2nd story allowing heat to flow upstairs. Not that it needs it because a person could have a heat stroke just standing upstairs for too long. The FHA has decided this is insufficient heating and baseboard heaters need to be installed in each room on the 2nd floor. Baseboard heaters are electric heaters which can be purchased at Lowe's for as little as $38 but I'm not allowed to buy them myself. No, I have to pay a contractor $400, yes, $400, to "install" the heaters. Here's another example- there's a leak under the kitchen sink. To fix it will require tightening the connections or at most, replacing a section of the pipe, and yet I'm am being forced to pay a contractor $200 to do this for me. Seriously?!!

I have a family full of hearty men just itching to get their hands on this house to put their home repair skills to good use. Thanks to the geniuses in charge, I get to pay contractor rates for work we could do ourselves. The inspector's repairs add up to $14,000+, whereas I could do the same for about $7,000 including materials, beer & pizza (& electrician's fee). The powers that be at HUD have turned a program meant to help those with more initiative than money into a red tape ordeal that drags the borrower further in debt.

After the HUD inspection and the contractor bids, I was back to the house last Tuesday afternoon for the final (HA!) review- the appraisal. The owner had claimed he'd been told to list the house at $15,000 more than the asking price. Clearly someone was deluding themselves because the appraisal came back $3,000 shy of the asking price plus required repairs. The lender very generously offered to continue with the loan provided I came to the table with the difference in cash. Well, golly gee- I'd love to do that but where exactly am I going to find an extra $3,000? I knew I shouldn't have cut down that damn money tree.