I think that when Maggie said "home inspector" she meant appraiser. Ask your new friend Brett for the name & number of a good electrical contractor and hire the guy to look over the wiring and breaker box.
The morons who remodeled this place in 1975 when my uncle got it, cut every corner they could. Try only 3 circuits for the house and 14 gauge wire with 30 amp fuses on each circuit. 3 prong outlets-using 14 gauge wire with no ground. Really cute! The guy I hired to redo the electric like to have crapped his pants when he saw that. I had him rewire the place using 12 gauge for everything-I'd bought 750' of it before I even hired him. He redid the fuse box and gave me 5 circuits to handle everything. 5 circuits with 20 amps a circuit on 12 gauge wire is WAY safer than 3 circuits @ 30 amps each with 14 gauge wire.
I'd already had to crawl under the house and run a ground wire to 2 of the outlets as the morons from 1975 didn't use wire with a ground-which was already mandatory by 1975. I ran a new Romex wire down from the outlets into a box under the house and connected it to the old 2 conductor wire and the new grounding wire I'd run into the box.
Also check for aluminum wiring-trust me, you don't want that hassle.
Also, if the house has a septic tank instead of a city sewer, get it inspected.
MFM,
Most of Beacon has city sewers, but on the outskirts there are only septic systems. I want to avoid a septic system because I want a darkroom. Also know that I poop a lot. LOL.
Right now the pent up demand is causing homes to go to a consignment stage where bidding and other offers can happen.
I expect the economy to begin slowing, for reality to set in, and for a bit of a dramatic downturn to begin in the fall. Pretty much there is no recovery, only a massive head fake. We are in a very serious mess.
Also we want a rather modest small home. Two bedroom one bath would be fine. Devil Christian pointed out that older homes are leaky, and for practical reasons I don't want a large house to maintain, although I'm willing to pay for a larger lot.
Seems like the larger lots though have septic, so I might have to compromise to be happy-happy. The ability to grow enough food to sustain myself and Maggie I think will become mucho important.
It seems that not far away is a change of growing seasons, which means about a ten degree rise in temperature envelope. When this happens Central Park will become subtropical and will have a climate and growing season more like Maryland.
At that time Beacon will advance to a zone 7 which what was NYC Westchester, and Long Island. Beacon will displace a zone 6.
At Photoville, years ago, they kinda connected the dots for me of a rather bleak future. Global warming caused famines, which led to civil wars, which led to a refugee crisis, and all this migration and need for humanitarian aid.
In the Sunday New York Times was a section on how much of the world will become unlivable in the next few decades. BTW the Times feature suggests that Central Park already has become subtropical and the fauna already is changing. Cherry Blossoms flowered in mid March this year in Central Park.
Some of the flooding that Phil says to be aware of is very real. The amount of rain is expected to be the same, but rain will become less frequent, and when it does rain expect floods.
On this map there is kind of a narrowing belt where life can be sustained, and it is alarming how much of the world will not be viable. There are sections in the U.S. and China, and in India parts will get so hot that without air conditioning as life support death will prevail. There will be dead zones and a huge migration of refugees...
Cal
