Introduction

[Jero312]

Hello, I have been lurking and reading on here quite a bit, I am going to make an offer on an 1770 Colonial house today, I am very excited, I spoke to some local historians and and they told me the man who built the house was a Continental Soldier, he participated in a battle at a local fort (Fort Griswold) and was wounded there. I have seen his name on old documents and listing the wounded and dead and have even visited his grave, which is still local I think it's awesome to have such a connection to local history. I am active military as well so I feel the connection is extra special. Well I hope everthing in the inspection and at the bank turns out OK.

[KristenS]

Good luck with the offer! House buying is such an exciting roller coaster.

[SkipW]

Welcome and good luck!

That is a great historical start. Many folks don't even have 1/4 of that information about their house.

Wish you success (and thanks for serving!)

[gregV]

W E L C O M E
Very happy to see another pre 1840s home owner! Let me introduce myself. I'm the 18th century home pest of the forum.
Can't wait to hear more, and hopefully you will share some pics.
Where abouts is the house?

Greg V

Oh... see you mentioned Fort Griswold. So you are here in CT on the shore?

[Don M]

Welcome too & keep us posted; we love pictures.

[melissakd]

Welcome!!!!! Thanks for your service. Here's hoping the house passes inspection and the lender isn't a predatory jerk (probably the two major old-house-buying pitfalls), because it sounds GREAT.

MelissaKD

[letty]

Passing the inspection can be more important than you realize - it's not just for you!

If you are going in with less than 20% down, your lender will require PMI. PMI is issued from a company other than your bank - it's essentially insurance for your bank. This is relatively standard, but what they don't tell you is that if ANYTHING comes up in your inspection that the PMI company doesn't like, they will refuse to insure the loan, so the bank will refuse to give you the loan.

This happened to us - the PMI company decided they didn't like the way the "connector" (between house and barn) looked, so they refused to issue PMI. Our only other option was to come up with the full 20% down payment...which we did at the expense of our savings account, renovation fund, first born, etc.

[jharkin]

Welcome!!

So far you have gotten off easy, usually newbies get a demand for photographs day 1... We'll let you off till you close In all seriousness I'm sure you will enjoy it here. Let me add another vote of jealousy that you know the builders identity.

On the topic of inspections... I don't think my PMI company cared about the inspection results. But my homeowners insurance did. In the end it all worked out but they did have to send their own guy out to inspect the house due to the age. Something to think about - give yourself some time to get that sorted well in advance of closing day (we scrambled with 2 weeks to go).Oh and our lawyer did spend a lot of extra time gong through the title chain, lot of ownerhship changes left a couple of incompletely discharged old mortgages from banks that no longer exist they had to sort.

All fixable but takes a lot of time. Dont rush. Have fun. Send us pictures

[James]

Always good to see another 18th century home owner on here. Your place and mine should be around the same age. Not a lot of us on here with places that old. And we do look forward to seeing the pictures of it. Where are you located?

[Jero312]

I am bringing this thread back to life... the original house we were looking at back in Sept. ended up falling through, the bank did not want to deal with a VA loan, so we started our search again, after looking at about 9 nine different homes and hundreds of others online we finally found one we fell in love with in early october. It is an 1803 Colonial Gambrel in GREAT condition, it is located right near the water in New London CT (on Pequot for anyone familiar with the area ) and is on a really cool 3 tiered property. We went through the offer, home inspection, VA inspection, insuring and closing over the next 2 months and finally had a deed in hand on Dec 1st. Me and my wife are thrilled to own this home and everyone who has seen it loves it, we are already planning to keep it in the family for many many years and feel like it is a real treasure.

Now the real fun is beginning I am already planning out my short and long term projects, My ultimate goal is to make the house as energy efficient and "off the grid" as possible without diminishing the historical integrity of the home, I know it will be a long, sometimes hard journey but it is one I am looking forward to going down.

....pics to come when I get back from work.