The written report will probably take a week or so, like an appraisal.

Sounds like a god deal for the inspection...so long as he still spends 3-4 hours in there checking everything out. Especially electrical and HVAC.

Checking for things like rotten window sills, termite damage, gas appliance venting, fireplace and chimney conditons and scary electrical issues.

One thing to remember. The house have been standing almost 90 years, so something must have been done right. I'm not sure what some of these tract homes and new construction are going to be like in 90 years. Modern engineering has brought us some improvements, but it's also allowed builders to put up a house quickly and cheaply with as few skilled craftsmen as possible.

ladyvixen84!! I'm in Iowa, too! I'm not too far from the MN border.

Where are you at with the house purchase?

When my carpenter handed me the square cut nails from my kitchen remodel nearly 2 years ago he created a monster! I have spent the last 5+ months investigating everyone on my abstract. The whole ancestry.com thing and corresponding with genealogy people and everything. There's some kind of 40 year rule......I think something about the first 40 years doesn't have to be included in the abstract?? I forget what the abstractor said. But anyway, I'm stalking these people who have been dead for over 100 years and getting involved in their lives as if they were my own family! The deeper I get into it I find it's all the same family. It's passed through the daughters so of course it's the husband's name "and wife" on the deed. I've traced partnerships, marriages, death, adoption and about anything else that happens to a family. I went to the courthouse and got those missing deeds and that's where the fun began. I may never get done. I've learned more Iowa history, American history and geography since March than I ever knew before that and I was really into that stuff. Read a revolting Spirit Lake Massacre article...they did NOT teach that version in 6th grade Iowa history! I ended up with 3 out of 160 original acres. That's what happened in 160 years. I'm making a book of what I've found out. The problem is what to leave in and what to leave out. I thought I'd add some history appropriate to the transaction date just for reference but now I'm at 150 pages and I'm not done. I hope the next owner appreciates all the information I will leave here.

Leave none of the ugly parts out. Too much of the native history is omitted already - as you mentioned.
(Pottawatomie tribe descendant, I'm biased by default).
:-)

ladyvixen84, I didn't mean to hijack your post. Once I got started on the history of my house I became obsessed. The more I found out, the more I wanted to know. It was a learn as I went project and if I can help someone else find their information easier, I'd love to. I highly recommend researching the previous owners of your old houses. I think old house lovers would appreciate the life the other owners survived.

ks_toolgirl, the Spirit Lake Massacre was a hundred miles from me but I thought it still appropriate to put in. This place was the frontier after all. I haven't found anything like any John Wayne movie or Bonanza episode. The Waltons' and Little House didn't tell it like it was. I've found babies dieing, young adults dieing, people getting drown or burnt by cooking fires. So many childred died. Of the families I have completed, two mothers died during childbirth or within 2 years. The remaining spouse probably remarried almost immediately. Children were sometimes sent to live with other relatives and sometimes adopted by them. Life was cruel. It was nothing for a woman to have a baby every year. If she was very lucky, of her 12 children 4 or 5 would survive to adulthood. One thing I read and lost was some kind of -I don't know what it was called, but the stitistic was that this particular country school didn't have any students more than 10% underweight. Isn't that awful? I wonder how thin the other school children were. Or maybe I don't want to know.

"One thing to remember. The house have been standing almost 90 years, so something must have been done right."

A hopefully amusing aside ... in 1992 I owned a house built in 1972. In a local home store one day I heard a worker tell a customer, "All the houses around here were built to self-destruct in about 20 years."

Oh yes. And I was busy trying to hold back the self-destruction of my own tract house. Now I am in a 98 year old house, mostly original, mostly in decent condition, mostly needing cosmetic work.

"Now I am in a 98 year old house, mostly original, mostly in decent condition, mostly needing cosmetic work."

The poorly constructed ones disappeared a long time ago.