Day 23:
We'll talk with S tonight about requesting either some fixes, reduction to sales price, or both. The lady who lived in the home hasn't been in the home for about 2 years, and so there's some deferred maintenance on things like painting/sealing, etc. I mention this because while I would usually ask the homeowner to make some repairs, the seller isn't even in the state and so I guess it would fall to her family (or whoever's helping her with the sale) to follow through on making repairs, and I don't have much confidence in that.
I'm leaning towards more of a "reduce the sales price by xyz and we'll handle the repairs with vendors we want to use" approach. But we'll see. Maybe S will suggest a different approach.
@boarder42, I don't remember every electrical issue off the top of my head, and some are smallish, but they include: 1) many two-way switches installed when a three-way switches should have been used, 2) reversed polarities on many outlets, 3) non-GFI outlets including outside, in the kitchen, and even in the bathroom, 4) wires hooked up to breakers that are too large (example, 12 gauge wire in 30 amp breaker - there are MANY of these in the house), etc.
I asked the inspector to prioritize, from a safety perspective, what he thought the repairs should be, and he said: 1) electrical, 2) damage to gable where birds and other critters can get in, 3) improperly constructed stairs to back covered deck. He says a few steps are too high in and around the house, but it would be very expensive to fix some of them. Also some of the window frames are getting a little rotted. We'd need to replace the trim/siding at some point, but not this year!
We can do things like run tubing from downspouts to the back yard (lot slopes backward), paint, and the smaller stuff.
We're getting termite inspection today. We cleared radon test yesterday.