I finally found a house - in Renton - and made an offer on it. The bones of the house are good, and it seemed well maintained. But, the inspection turned up a lot of deferred maintenance.

The gutter system needs to be completely replaced - and, if you've visted the Pacific Northwest, you KNOW that cannot wait. So, about $2,200 for new alumninum gutters. There also seems to be rodents in the crawlspace - not anything that I would want to live with - so, another $1,250 to clear out the crawlspace debris and $600 for pest control. In addition, there are several giant Douglas Firs - beautiful, three story plus high, trees - that are far too close to the house. I refer to the backyard as the mini-forest. There are 14 trees in all, and about 12 of them need to be taken down. Due to power-lines, I can't have them logged. So, I'm looking at about $7105 to remove those trees, grind the stumps, and haul away the trees. That's probably why the former owners didn't do anything about them. Then, there is the horrific popcorn ceiling - yes, it does contain absestos. To have it properly removed and the abestos disposed of, I'm looking at $6,300 - which is a very reasonable bid for 1900 sq feet. The chimney also needs new flashing, plus there are some electrical repairs. Total cost to walk in the door, about $18,000. Making everything just a little more painful, Washington state adds on a sales tax of 8.8% to every single repair.

After all of that, I won't have any extra cash, but I will have a kitchen and 2 bathrooms that are literally from 1968 (period fixtures included). They desperately need to be updated. Unfortunately, with the long (and expensive) have to do right away list, I don't see much opportunity (short term). Guess I'll be pulling out the "how to" books and saving up for a tile saw. And, there are a lot of things that, being single and new in town, I just don't have the resources (i.e. a helper) to tackle by myself. For example, new doors throughout the house would be a great feature - especially the uninsulated side door. Unfortunately, even if I could figure out how to set up the hinges/locks/etc, I don't think that I could physically lift the door into place while screwing in the new sill, etc, by myself.

Due to the amount of money involved, I've asked the current owners to make some of the fixes. They'll let me know in a couple days, if they are willing to pitch in.