Housing update

Here is a picture of the built-in microwave in the kitchen of the house that we will not be buying.

We intended to buy the house. Until this morning we were about two weeks into escrow to buy the house. But that was before the inspection process turned up some issues with the house that needed to be dealt with.

The property sits on a hillside and there is a retaining wall at the lower end of the property that is holding back quite a bit of earth from sliding into the neighbor's pool below. The wall is doing a very good job of that and has been doing it for at least five years. It may very well continue to do a good job for another 10 or 20 years. There's no way to know for sure.

We do know that the wall was built without permits and not to code. And we know that the geologist we hired to look at it recommended it be torn down and rebuilt correctly. And since we know this (and the sellers now know this) we felt it was fair for some adjustment to be made to the purchase price of the house.

We consulted with several contractors about the scope of the job and the liability issues if the wall were to fail. It was made clear to everyone that this would be a very expensive fix.

In the end the sellers were not willing to reach an agreement with us that we could live with and so we have now cancelled the contract. We are disappointed not only because we thought the house was otherwise fantastic but now we will be in between houses for a short while because we sold our house on Wilbur.

That's the good news. We had a lot of interested buyers the first few days it was on the market and we were able to make a deal with a nice couple for a bit over the asking price.

So, we will probably be in a rental for a month or two or three while we look for our next home.