This matters. You have to live in this space long term, it should give you those feelings.
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Yeah… How many houses have you looked at? If you walk away from this one, are you confident about finding something as good or better? How much would it appreciate between now and then?
If you’d known the true dates about various appliances, would you still have accepted the counteroffer? Would you have offered something different? Can you do that now?
I’m not familiar with buyer’s warranties - would they cover these major costs, or a big part of them? That may be a way to reduce risk. I think you said you are also getting additional inspections, having someone look at the equipment to better gauge it’s useful life. That will definitely be good information to have. I think you are doing what you can to reduce your risk.
I’m curious to see what you decide to do. There’s valid reasons for both choices, and it’s a risk, either way.
ETA: what happens to your earnest money if you walk away? If you lose it, and if it’s significant (i.e. a big part of what the HVAC would cost), well, that’s something else to consider.
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Yeah, our water heater is 30 years old and HVAC similar age (though plenty of parts on it that are much newer)
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Home warranties do have some gotchas that I’m not super familiar with, but would the cost of one be worth the peace of mind?
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My water heater was 35 years old when I redid all my plumbing and my furnace has a 5 digit phone number to call for service so it’s older than whenever 7 digit phone numbers started.
If you have a plumber/HVAC inspecting they should be able to give you an idea of how well maintained the HVAC and water heater have been and might be able to give you a rough estimate of how much time you have left for each system.
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@mountainmustache29 I just wanted to add, regardless of if some people here got great life out of their units, it really depends well they were maintained (which you usually don’t knw unless the previous owner kept meticulous records), as well as what quality the units actually were as well. My water heater died in a way that would have been almost as expensive to fix it as to replace it, due to the way it was constructed. It was 14 years old and a low end unit. I decided to replace my AC (whole house unit) at the same time as it was also old and used freon, which could not be replaced anymore. My new equipment that I bought were much more efficient as well as were mid-range with 20-year warrenty. It’s just luck of the draw when you are buying. It’s a bit sketchy they didn’t even fill out the disclosures (I thought it was illegal to willfully not disclose info - maybe it was part of an estate or someone was moved to a care home or something and the person handling the sale actually doesn’t know?) but anyway, as others have said, you also have to decide what it is worth to you (regardless of what the markets say). I’d also add that you can often get up to 2 years interest free financing with big jobs like HVAC replacement - I got 18 months interest free financing on mine despite the fact that I could have paid it in cash. I figured, free loan. That can buy you some time in the event of a catastrophic failure as well, should you need a little buffer space to build up the cash.
In California the seller pays for the home warranty by law, but other places that isn’t necessarily true. It isn’t here, and I didn’t purchase one when I bought this time because it didn’t seem worth it. We never used it for our place in CA.
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Oh gosh yes. I should clarify that I know my appliances are NOT the norm especially compared to anything installed in the last 25 years!
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Agree. I struggle with comparing the value of new technology and value of older versions due to better repairability and / better materials used during manufacture. Not even sure how to search that reliably.
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I have 10 days from this past Monday to walk away from Inspection contingency. We also have an appraisal contingency here in AZ, so if it appraises low, and the seller won’t lower the price, I can also walk away then. Many opportunities to walk out before losing earnest money ($2K)
I do think if I had known about the appliances I wouldn’t have accepted the counter offer. I really wanted a “move in ready” type house. I know not every house will be that way, but for me specifically, I work full time, I’m in school and I have chronic back problems. I can’t fix things myself, so I have to pay to fix them which is $$$. So it was a big deal to me to know that two of the $$$ appliances were going to be ok for a bit.
This is only the 4th house I’ve seen. But I’m looking in a very specific area of my city, where there might be a new house once a week, and it’s probably not in my price range because it’s a very expensive part of town. So it’s not like there are tons of houses that I could be interested in. That is my hesitance with letting this one go…
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I do know that the inspector said the HVAC was a really nice unit, I forget the brand but he said it was high quality that usually lasts a long time. I’ll see what the HVAC inspector says on Monday.
They just willfully did not disclose. It is a normal family that is just moving out of state, not an estate or anything…and MY opinion is they are moving to a VERY expensive town in CO (they told me this) and they are trying to get as much money out of their house as they can in a super hot market where people really aren’t doing their due diligence before making massive offers over list price without even seeing a house. I’m sure that is what he was hoping for for his house. Unfortunately I am not that type of person, and I am going to ask every single question and look at every inch of this house because I’ve been saving my tiny paychecks for years for this, and it’s a Big Deal to me, haha.
It is good to know that you can finance things like HVAC…the thought of just being out another $5-7K (or more who knows) right after buying a house just makes me a little sick.
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I feel you. It’s tough… I think you have to go with your gut. But definitely see what the inspection yields. If it’s too unacceptable, walk away, you should get your earnest money back based on your inspection contingency. OR! counter and try to get a credit. They the onus is on them to walk away, and you still get your deposit back. It’s not a super great look for a unit to go back on the market (though there might be myriad valid reasons for it), so they might take it. I did that and got a new septic tank and new well out of it (not cheap!!).
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Yeah I am hoping because they have new jobs, new house, are already moving to another state that they will not want to take the time to back out of this, and relist, plus the other offers they received with mine were FHA loans, which require even more stringent inspection/rules, which will take even more time. I feel like I am in a place to counter and try to get a credit, even though my realtor insists she wouldn’t do it if she were me. I have a place to live and am not desperate to buy this house, even though I do really like it. The worst thing that happens is they pull out of the contract, and that would suck but also I would be ok and probably eventually find another place to live.
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It’s weird your realtor doesn’t think you should even counter? Normally people will just say no, not pull out of a deal entirely?
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I think its weird too…she puts a lot of weight on this “sellers market” and doesn’t want to push back and lose a deal to someone else. Every time I bring something up she’s like “yeah that won’t matter, they aren’t going to fix that”. Which is fine, it’s just disheartening that it’s not even considered a reasonable request… I was talking to a friend who is in realtor school right now and she said the general air among realtors right now is “buyers should just be happy someone accepted their offer and they are getting a house at all, ask no questions/make no counters”.
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Our realtor wasn’t quite that bad but didn’t encourage us to ask for credit. We asked for 11K credit which was 1/3 the cost of replacing all of the end of life major appliances (we provided quotes to justify the cost because my local family works in the industry and it was easy to get them). Apparently the seller was super offended that we would ask for that much and countered with $3K credit. We went back at $7K and finally accepted $5K. I’m in a HCOL location so really this was a fraction of the cost and I’d the seller had held firm at 3K we probably would have been annoyed but gone through with the sale.
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You could always request a few thousand dollars of credit because the dates were misrepresented, and they might say yes. If they say no, then you have some decisions to make. You’re the boss, you get to tell your realtor what you decide.
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Your realtor sounds shitty.
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Do you have a buyer’s agency agreement with them? I’ve only ever bought one house, but I know our realtor very clearly gave off the vibe that she wasn’t willing to do much advocacy unless she was a buyer’s agent. Just curious.
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I agree with smacky. Your Realtor should be working for you, not for the whims of the housing market.
I think you’re doing a really great job of thinking this through objectively though! I was definitely the impulsive Yep This One type of home shopper and finally landed on the 10th or 11th This One 
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My spidey senses think your realtor might be thinking it’s too much extra work for them to do the very minimal extra negotiation and paperwork. I have been shocked at how often that is the case. Literally the sellers can just say no it won’t hurt anything. When I bought my realtor tried to tell me the same thing and I am 100% sure it was laziness and no real market reason.
Edit: and sometimes maybe the sellers realtor wants to not deal with stuff too and close the deal ASAP so they will just agree to whatever you ask! Lol.
Another edit I just thought of: your offer was accepted with an inspection contingency so obviously the sellers had to be expecting this negotiation!
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