Sometimes Buyers Will Find It Difficult To Make Rational Decisions About Home Inspection Findings

Buying a house can be an enormous decision - full of plenty of emotions - anxiety, apprehension, excitement and much more!  Buy a house is likely to be one of the largest financial decisions you will ever make - AND you are making a decision (where you will live) that will affect countless other aspects of your life, likely for many years to come.

So, are you good at making difficult decisions in a highly emotional state?  Many people find that to be difficult!

Let's imagine this scenario -- you're buying a $245,000 home and you are SO excited to buy it because if it's charm, character, location, and so much more!  It is within walking distance of the downtown scene - and even though it is an older home, it seems to have been well maintained and updated.

But then, you do the home inspection and you find out that the ___ will need to be replaced in the next few years.  Technically, this could be any number of items -- heating system, roof, appliances, etc. 

What to do...what to do!?

Perhaps it is going to cost another $5,000 to make this update - and the seller is not willing to adjust the contract terms based on your inspection findings because, after all, the ____ is still working properly now.

So - do you throw the whole purchase out the window?  You're going to have another $5,000 of costs within the next few years!?  The seller should be willing to negotiate to cover some of that cost!?  Is your "really good decision" now actually a "really bad decision"?!?

This advise is not prescriptive to all situations, but I would encourage you to consider the big picture as rationally as possible.  You are about to buy a home that is (in my fictional scenario) going to totally change your life.  It's a home you can see yourself living in for 10 - 15 years.  You look forward to the memories formed in the house, the places you can walk and experience based on its location, the opportunity to have a garden in the backyard, and so much more! 

A question that you could then ask yourself would be whether you'd pay $250K for this awesome, amazing, perfect, life changing house and opportunity, instead of the $245K you have contracted to pay.  If so, and if you'll have cash available to make the needed upgrade to the ____ sometime in the next few years, then maybe it's not really a terrible idea to continue with the purchase despite the newfound information about the condition of the house and despite the seller's unwillingness to assist with it financially.

Again - this is not generic advice of "don't worry about the issues that come up in the inspection" - but more of an encouragement to consider the big picture of what you are buying, why you are buying it, what it is worth to you, etc.