My husband and I are looking to buy our first house. We thought that we had found it, too. It was great–a 1930’s 1.5 story bungalow (I think that’s what you call it) with a three-season porch, three nice-sized bedrooms (none of these completely useless 8’x8’ rooms like some of the houses we’ve seen), dining room and eat-in kitchen, workshop in the basement, plenty of storage areas, and a beautiful backyard with a tire swing and kids’ clubhouse (Awwww…). It also has a two-car garage with a large storage shed attached to the back. Wow, we thought. No one would ever have to see our crap again! This is great!
We made an offer contingent on an inspection. We’d noticed that the garage roof looked pretty old–the house roof had been replaced about two years ago, but the garage roof looked a bit rough. It also looked like it was sagging a little bit (well, the guy was storing enough stuff in the rafters–no wonder, right?)
Oy. There must have been too much crap in the shed the first time for us to notice that this common wall between the garage and the shed is starting to fall apart! The blocks are actually shifting and bowing out. You can see that the concrete floor of the garage is staring to tip and shift. The whole building is going to head downhill into the backyard at a moment’s notice! My father (a bricklayer) and the inspector both agreed–a person would be taking a real risk if they parked a car in that garage even once! (No wonder the garage floor was simply littered with the owner’s crap. I don’t think he’s parked in there for months! I had just thought he was a bit of a packrat.)
We’d been looking at replacing a garage roof. Now, we were looking at replacing a whole garage! Dad estimated that the teardown, disposal, re-landscaping (so that the new garage doesn’t fall downhill, too), construction, and materials would likely cost us $20,000. (If we could afford an extra $20,000, we’d be looking in that price range, right?) Plus, there’s the inconvenience of not being able to use the garage all winter.
I sincerely doubt that the owner’s going to come down that far (we had to do enough haggling to set the price as it was), and, frankly, I don’t want that much of a PITA. I need something that will last the winter, at least! So, we had to retract our offer.
The sad thing is that the house itself checks out very well for being seventy years old. It certainly has character and just about everything that my family and I could reasonably dream of. I know that there are other houses out there, but I’m still a bit bummed. 
The moral of this story–we’ve learned quite a bit from that inspection. That was money very well spent. A couple hundred dollars has saved us tens of thousands.