Lemon or Great Deal?

The home inspection for the house we're trying to buy was this week. It went...well let's just say the doorbell works! Here are the major problems the guy told us about (I'm not going to even bother listing all the little stuff):
- The foundation needs work (which may tear up the yard and beautiful new floors)
- The roof needs replaced
- The AC is broken and needs replaced (not fixable)
- The heater has rusted coils and needs replaced (not fixable)
- The water heater is broken and needs replaced
- Some of the beams in the attic that hold the roof up are coming apart and need more support
- The brick is coming away from the studs on the exterior back wall of the house and moves when you push on it (needs to be re-bricked and they don't even sell that color brick anymore)

Yeah... I was a little socked going through the report. I mean, I knew there was a lot wrong with it (that's why we're getting a good price) but I didn't know everything that could be wrong was wrong!

We're currently in negotiations with the sellers over who will fix what. If we can work it out we're probably still going to buy the house. The sellers have already agreed to fix the foundation, but we need to figure out how that will all go down. If the floors get ripped up when fixing the foundation will they pay for repairs? Who will own the house while it's being fixed? There are so many details and our option period ends on Wednesday. I think we're going to end up extending our option period to figure this all out.

I have to be honest, this is not what I thought buying a home would be like. I've even always wanted a 'fixer upper'... but I meant more like the house was ugly and needed wallpaper torn down and new tile in the bathroom, not this. So, why haven't we walked away yet? Well, it needs about 30k worth of work... but if you add 30k to the price of the home it's still a good deal in that area. Part of me thinks about how nice the house will be once all this is fixed. Brand new foundation, roof, AC, water heater... hard to find in an old house and I bet we wouldn't have any major problems the whole time we lived there. The other part of me wonders if this house is a money pit. I wish I could look into the future and see what will happen if we buy this house... but unfortunately that's not possible. Instead we're just trying to make wise decisions.

Sometimes being a grown up is stressful!