The Inspection
After making an offer sight-unseen, we opted to hire our own home inspector (instead of going with our realtors' "recommended" inspector 1) who is also a Contractor with experience working on old homes.
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Notes
1. It is apparently quite normal for these recommendations to involve kickbacks. Not that this is necessarily bad for anyone involved... but we would prefer to align with our best interest as many of the incentives involved as possible.