caulk_king wrote: "Sheesh. The more I read on this topic, I think realtors have all these little rules that you & I are not supposed to question. What does the attorney do? Do I have them draw up an offer? Or do I just make my offer to the selling agent & they do a contract that I then have reviewed by our attorney? Thats what we did. We made our offer and had our real estate attorney draw up our own contract. He suggested we use this instead of the standard one because it would better protect our interests. If you don't already have a RE attorney sometimes you can find a good one at a bank, they can probably help with the appraisal as well. I would call a mortgage lender in that town (or closest large town) and ask for a couple of names the lender has worked with in a closing. (Ask for the branch manager at the mortgage company - and tell them you are paying cash so you don't have to listen to a sales pitch. Mortgage lenders work with attorneys all the time. They know which ones do their homework and which ones are a pain to deal with, etc. Nobody wants to deal with the latter, so their recommendations might be helpful. The following is something I picked up in a real estate forum. I don't have the link but it may be helpful: "You might want to do a couple of things to help you feel better. Go to the city/township clerk's office (or better, check online - do a google on the town's name and "government" and see if they have Assessments listed anywhere on the official town website.) With nothing but an address, I can go online and see the info in the official records about the lot, the owners, the taxes, the buildings on the lot including sq footage (at least as much as was done with permits - LOL!) and the info on previous sales. I can often get a drawing of the perimeter of the house with measurements. There is often a search for comparables, or a listing of recent sales. At worst, you will have to do a search on the addresses of the recent sales to see the sizes of these buildings and the selling prices. From that you can do a cost-per-square-foot calculation and see if you really did overpay compared to recent comparables. I will guess that you will find that your house cost was not out of line with other recent sales." One last thing. Read the thread "Just don't want to use a buyer's agent"? Some of the information there might be useful for determining is you need a realtor or not. ;)

I don't know, I think people can be into math and numbers and also into words and reading and also into design and art. One can be an athlete as well as any of the above. I guess the questions try to put people in one camp or the other, but most people don't fit fully on either side, unless they have extreme personalities. I'd hate to be so predictable as to stick with one label. I pay attention to a lot of different areas, but also know I have a lot of blind spots. I can't fix a car, never got the complexities of chess and and not good at any games with ball throwing or worse, being thrown at. Ask me about world events and I do pretty well. Ask me about pro basketball/hockey/soccer/tennis and I am lost. Challenge me to a game of cards (canasta, pinochle or spades) and I will kick booty. No once can be great at everything, but one can be interested in a bunch of things. As much as I like numbers and have a talent for doing math in my head, I don't think of myself as a numbers person, per se. I can be analytical and I can also be emotional. Some decisions are driven by one and some the other. Hopefully, most include both areas. In any case, I like quirky and unexpected with design, so you won't see my kitchen in anyone else's house. I may have copied bits and pieces, but the total will be our own design (for better or worse, lol). Most of the design is from my imagination, but dh has had some input too and so it is a collaboration overall. I think our kitchen reflects our sensibilities a bit, so it can be a clue to our personalities in a way. I bet a profiler could deduce a lot from how people design their kitchens. Math has nothing to do with it....

It doesn't work that way, a preventive fungus regimen means you have to apply fungicide about every 30 days through summer. Keep the big guns for when you get an outbreak. A granular fungicide like Headway G is perfectly safe for your family, you water it in and it goes straight into the soil without anyone getting in contact with it (unless you dig into the dirt I guess). But I understand your concern. For now, there's a number of things you can do to significantly reduce the chance of fungus: Get the watering right - deep and infrequent is key. Here's my take on watering : http://lawniac.com/lawn-watering Do not water in the evening. Limit spring fertilizer applications - do not fertilize until late May and even then use a slow release or organic fertilizer. The key is to not create a flush of young tender growth that the fungus can easily attack. Mow often enough that you only remove 1/3 of the blade in any one session. This reduces stress on the grass. Keep your mower blades sharp so as to not tear up the grass and make it susceptible to fungus infection. Try Serenade. Keep a bag of Headway G on hand to have if things go sour. If you see patches of grass dying act swiftly, none of that "maybe it will get better on its own, let's wait and see".

I'm going to overlook all the relationship issues here, plenty of great advice has been given. I'll just give my 2 cents on the design aspect. Maybe his mother loves your style and that is part of why she wants the condo. Her lifestyle has changed over the years and maybe she doesn't know how to let go of some things but maybe she loves your style too. If that's the case, it might not be too insensitive to say you want to change the style of the new house. I would take the changes slowly, you don't want to trample on feet but as you remodel, you can always fall back on the idea that you want to change things before you start a family because you know once a baby is here not much else will get done for a while. This may be a more gentle way for his mother to accept the changes, and make her excited about being a grandmother one day. It might make it easier for her to let go knowing that broken furniture or lots of storage isn't safe for curious little ones. Good luck!