Repairs, repairs, repairs. . .

I haven't written in several days, so thought I would sit down a reflect on a recent sale that closed. I had a house that closed this past Friday that again had a lot of things to work through. The main this with this house was repairs. My seller was trying to sell because she was a single mom who just could not keep up with the upgrades and repairs that an older home needed. We finally after 7 months on the market got under contract. We agreed to pay for repairs required by the lender. The buyers quickly got their appraiser out there and we quickly had the termite inspection done to see what repairs would be required. We found quite a list, lots of electrical issues which were a safety hazard, a little bit of wood damage and some areas that needed fill dirt. We got started on the work and knew that we would have to have both the appraiser and termite inspectors come back out to reinspect. What I learned out of this deal and the repairs was the fill dirt. I had called the appraiser for more specifics about how much dirt was required and where. He was not all that cooperative and said that it would be in the report and pictures would be there. My seller filled in what she thought was needed, but come time to reinspect he said no he wanted "more than a shovel". The communication was poor in knowing what was required. Finally a dirt man came to look to see how much dirt was required and he quickly knew what he was talking about. You can not have a negative grade around the foundation. Water needs to drain away from the house and not to the house. In the end we had to get a load of dirt to put in the area and it had to be spread with a tractor. We had to postpone our original closing date. Everything else had been done to satisfaction at that point. We thought we were to close and then 3 days after our original close date, I got a message that the buyers financing was not going to work. They were using a rural housing loan which has income limits and they were over income. Thankfully they had VA eligibility and were able to switch the type of loan. This however required an additional appraisal. Well, this appraiser found a couple more repair issues which were basically raggedy carpet and missing screens or holes in screens. The buyers knew they couldn't ask the seller to make any more repairs as she had already spent about $2,000. So they were able to appeal to the VA and get a waiver saying that they would make the repairs upon moving in. So lots to learn from each deal. If you are trying to sell your house and you know that repairs are needed, go ahead and do them, it saves issues once you are under contract. If you are not sure what problems may exist, have a home inspection done. It will be worth the money and if there is nothing to repair, your realtor can use that report in marketing and show that it is move in ready.