The real estate market in our area of Toronto continues to be strong. We literally had the opportunity to view our new home for 15 minutes while being ushered through all 4 floors. That being said we came away from it knowing that it had great bones and lots of space to work with… and we were going to have to act fast! We made our offer conditional upon a home inspection which we highly recommend particularily with a home this age (approx. built in the 1920’s) and the fact that it has been tenant occupied since the 1980’s. It is currently divided into 2 apartments: the main floor and basement which are vacant and then the 2nd and 3rd floors which still have a tenant. Structurally it seemed very sound but nothing had been updated inside and we needed to get a good grasp of a) what needed to be done and b) how much it would cost us.

Our agent recommended Ken Haller Home Inspection Services Inc. and Ken was fantastic to deal with. His fee was $397. He gave us a full run down of everything that he found to be an issue, timeline for fixing as well the approximate cost associated with it. Here’s his “bottom line” list of everything that he uncovered:

• Exterior Masonry/ Brick Pointing $2500

• Knob and Tube Replacement/ 75% of the house needs re- wiring $15,000

• New Water Boilers needed any where from now to 5 years from now based on statistical life span $10,000

• Asbestos Removal from downstairs pipes $2500 (currently contained but still!!)

• Replace Steel main plumbing from street and in house supply for improved pressure/ reduced leakage $5000

TOTAL- $35,000

Kirk and I gulped at the prospect of dishing out $35,000 on things that were necessary yet didn’t lend to any of the aesthetic updates that the house desperately needed ie. refinishing of floors, new windows etc. etc. Without having sold our house first we didn’t know what our renovation budget would end up being and that made us nervous. We decided to go back to the Sellers and reduce our original offer by $25,000 to account for most of the things that needed to be done. With a little bit of back and forth we ended up purchasing our new home for $812,000, original asking price $849,000. We negiated a closing date of Nov.1st for our new place and Nov. 30th for our current house leaving us exactly a month to get a few things done… provided that the remaining tenant actually vacates… which is still a concern!