It was not that this charming cottage was not well kept. From the second that you walked in the door you knew the house had been well maintained. It was clean and freshly painted. The kitchen was cute and functional kitchen. The appliances that were included were newer. The large living room had two closets and there was a formal dining room. The only bedroom was big and had a large walk in closet. The laundry room was a big as any bedroom could be in a approximately 950 square foot house. The carpet and the drapes were freshly cleaned and most of the seller's furniture was gone. The elderly seller, in her 80's had chosen by her own decision to move into an assisted care facility
The buyer just loved the house. The formal dining room could be used as a second bedroom. The laundry room was big enough still have half the room left over for laundry and a kitchen table after installing a second bath. Although the one car garage was original and had seen better days, it was still usable as a garage and there was room beside the garage off the alley for a second parking space to make up for the lack of parking on the street. The house was also ten minutes from the buyer's place of employment. The house was also the only one in the buyer's price range and the buyer just loved the vintage character homes in the older sections of the South Bay. This home also had a street to alley lot that was hard to find if you are spending under $400,000.00 in Torrance.
The inspection went well. In 22 years of selling property I had seen worse inspections on homes only ten years old and this home was 85. The wiring was original but still in good shape. The plumbing and heating systems were about 30 years old but in very good shape. The foundation was still in very good shape. The house had not had any earthquake upgrades but then most homes have not if they were built before the 1934 FHA standard codes had required homes be bolted to the foundation. Other than a few minor electrical repairs, some termite and dry rot damage and the water heater needing to be brought up to code there were only two other problems. One was a missing smoke detector that could easily be taken care of. The other was a:
Stay tuned for how much the seller could have saved if the problem had been discovered when they decided to put her house on the market
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