My dad is a dream crusher

OK, he's not really. He just took the wind out of our sails this weekend about the Catalpa house. After the counter offer came through, we decided to take the advice of a friend and go see the house again. On Saturday, we spent nearly 45 minutes in the home, turning on lights, flushing the toilets, measuring windows, looking very carefully at the ceiling for water stains, etc.

One thing that we did not notice on our previous visit was that the electrical outlets in half the house were not grounded. They only had 2 holes. I immediately knew this was a bad sign and dreaded telling my dad. He's an electrical and general contractor, and we rely on his knowledge of what can be fixed and how much it might cost. Dad basically said that to fix something like that in this house would be nearly impossible without major time and money spent. Because the house has a flat roof and no attic access, the only way to get to the wiring would be to rip out the drywall, which is a messy and expensive process. Basically, a flat roof makes it difficult to fix anything.

So, the end result is that we are going to walk away from this negotiation and continue looking. I guess we'll have to add another criteria to our search: a shingle roof. This is slightly problematic given that many of the homes we are looking at were built in the 50s when built up (flat tar and gravel) roofs were popular.

We're disappointed. I was so depressed about this that I couldn't bring myself to write yesterday. And it's not even about this house in particular, which should probably tell me that it wasn't the right house for us, but just about this search in general. I swear, we are not that picky. We're cautious, as Pete's sister put it. We don't want to get stuck with a money pit. We want the right house for the right price in the right neighborhood. Too much to ask? Apparently.

-- Yana