Q: My wife and I were house hunting for months, and finally found a place we liked. Amazingly, since we had been outbid so many times before, we were able to get into contract on it. We had all the normal inspections in our area -- termite, home inspection and a roof inspection -- and they did find some things that needed to be worked on, but there were also some really great upgrades and improvements that checked out OK.

Right before we were going to remove our inspection contingency, I asked my friend who is a contractor to come out and inspect the house, too. He didn't even walk inside -- he said he didn't like the way some of the things he could see on the home's exterior were done, and that the inside work was probably "no good" either. He said he wouldn't pay anymore than $200,000 for it -- and we were in contract at over $250,000! I immediately called our real estate agent and canceled the purchase.  more...