My home inspector was pretty quick, he got his report out same day!
This is the image from the first page of the report, taken this morning. The place is looking a bit bedraggled with the dead lawn. I see sprinklers and grass seed in my future.
The chimney inspection was pretty good. He found some issues, which I expected, but overall the chimney is in decent shape; it’s not about to fall down or anything. So that’s good news.
About the only thing which will prevent me from buying the house at this point is if the foundation cracks turn out to be a disaster. My home inspector thinks they can be fixed up with epoxy injection, which is a fairly common repair for older foundations. I’m getting a bid from a foundation company for the fix.
There is one other thing which could be an issue: I’m still not technically in contract. The bank which owns the property has confirmed verbally that they are accepting my offer, but I don’t have a signed purchase contract yet. I don’t have any reason to believe it’s anything more sinister that bureaucratic delay, but until they sign I can’t say with legal certainty that I’ve gotten the place.
I recommend sod
You don’t think it would be cheaper to just put down grass seed? I’m also worried that if some of the sod doesn’t take I’ll have to find an exact match for it to look good. If I start the lawn from seed then I can simply get more of the same seed.
From what I’ve heard, it surprisingly close in price when you have it done by a “pro”. And seeding that much area basically from scratch takes about the same amount of work as prepping for sod. And you get the instant gratification vs. will it or won’t it take/grow. The rolls I got at HD were $4.49 for a 2’x4′ roll, 54¢/sqf
Pro? What’s that? 🙂
I’m more worried about sod not taking than I am about seed. If I was going to hire someone to do it then I would tell them that I want “a lawn”, and let them subsequently just do whatever works. For a DIY project in which labor is not the dominant cost, I think seed will come out a lot cheaper than sod.
Get that written contract first and then its a go! Thanks!