I'm under contract for a house that I already offered a bit more than I planned to on. After inspection I found out the roof needs to be replaced within about 5 years, so am asking for a credit from the sellers. They came back with a credit of $2k for a job that could easily be $10-15k, so I'm getting quotes to back up my request for a higher credit.
However, this house is perfect - I can walk to work, and my wife can walk to a train station for a short 20 minutes ride. We're within close biking distance of day care and a grocery store, and walking/biking from several parks. The turnover in this area is very low, so the likelihood of a house like this coming on the market again any time soon is very low. However, with all the work that needs to be done on the house (mostly face-lifts like updated kitchen, GFCI outlets, landscaping, etc.) on top of the already high price, it's unlikely we would ever recover what we need to put into it. That said, as soon as we sell our other house, we can pay off our mortgage and start investing our newly freed-up income into REITs or some other investment vehicle that will be better for us.
So my question, fellow mustachians - do I bite the bullet and just eat the $10-15k short term loss for a long term gain in lifestyle, and recover the loss through other investment vehicles? Or do I need to look at this from a purely black and white financial investment and walk away?