Previously we explained how we found “The Perfect Monopoly” house in Apache Junction, made an offer and lost. We came in second. Then we made the offer on a house in Casa Grande that we thought could be “The Perfect Monopoly” house, made an offer and won. But it turned out to be a disaster. We canceled the deal but not before spending $400-$500 on inspection fees. More on those deals later.
Finally, last month we thought we found another “The Perfect Monopoly” house on the same avenue in Apache Junction. We made an offer and made sure we won. We had a strategy session where we reviewed the repair list line by line and decided which we would have fixed, which we would fix ourselves and which would be leave be and just live with. So, we got together to settle all the accounting and plan our repair campaign. On the morning of the 16th, we signed all the papers at close of escrow and owned the house.
During our repair strategy session above, we divided the home inspection items into three categories:
1. Those we would contract out to Bill of “Southwest Home Tenders LLC”.
2. Those that Jim and Jeff would do themselves,
3. Those that we would ignore.
On Thursday the 18th, two days after we bought the house, we planned an expedition to do several repairs ourselves. Also, Bill of “Southwest Home Tenders LLC” and his brother Sam would start on their task list.
Jeff brought his son Christian to help since Christian will be the heir to the Sutherlin fortune.
Why did we decide to do some of the repairs ourselves? Basically, for the fun of it. Jeff is handy around the house. We picked items that he enjoyed doing. Jeff acted as “foreman” and Christian and I were the day laborers. It was an enjoyable short day, about 7 hours. It was a partnership building exercise and we saved a few bucks, maybe $1,000. And we got paint on our clothes; “the red badge of courage” for the do-it-yourselfer.
We also made the obligatory trip to Home Depot.
How did the day go? Jim had previously ensured that the power would stay on by contacting SRP and paying the $30 fee. They waived the normal deposit since we are a good customer (with many other accounts) with a spotless payment record. Unfortunately, we had not done so for the water. The water was off when we got there. We needed water for the pressure washer. Some phone calls got it back on that day for the normal $147.75 fee plus a $50 ‘same day fee’.
You can see our work in progress:
On Saturday the 20th, Jeff went back to complete most of the repairs:
Next, we finally settle all the financial accounts.