New home fun:
Prior owners advised us of an occasional sewer gas smell in the basement. "it's just the floor drains - put water into them...." Two weeks ago, I was over by the main sewer pipe leading out of the basement and it smelled AWFUL. Raw sewage odors were coming from it. Had a plumber out and he confirmed that the seal was broken. He came by this morning to do the repairs and re-seal the connection, but he checked the condition of the sewer pipe in the ground first. The cast iron pipe has sheared off and broken in the ground - waste water is leaching out into the soil, and if left untouched, the sewer pipe would eventually clog with TP at the break and sewage and waste water would back up into the home. So we now have to have it dug up in the front yard/garden bed and a new pipe installed.
Thankfully, I have underground utility coverage on my homeowners insurance. It should be covered, subject to the $500 deductible. Much better than having to cough up the full $3,500 bill.
Not a fun situation, but you had a double positive whammy of sorting this in time and having it covered by insurance, so this should hopefully end well for you!
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We're off to a very promising start as home sellers. Basically first tour today was from an investor who already owns several units in my townhouse HOA community. Official offer will likely come tomorrow, but basically he's going to be offering us list price with a long rentback option. Biggest thing we're waiting to see is how much per month he would plan to charge us in rent. Unless it's something astronomical our realtor is basically saying we should absolutely take this deal, and it has some major advantages.
Pros:
-No strict deadline to move out after closing.
-We can set a closing date on a new house and then stop renting ~2 weeks later, giving us a very easy move within that period.
-Ready to close in 10 days, meaning selling is done immediately and we can just 100% focus on buying.
Cons:
-I was realistically hoping to get about 5k over asking.
-We're paying more for rent than we would be for our mortgage. Based on comparable rentals, probably like $600/month. The longer we search, the more it costs us.
The ability to find our dream home with no major pressure, along with an easy move means we will 99% take this if the agreement doesn't have anything insane in it.