The "Looking to become a homeowner" Thread

[21Kid]

511,115

[G'day Mate]

$512,800 was the winning answer

I am now officially a property tycoon.

[Random]

[speedpimp]

Nice.

[thesameguy]

I think you have to get to Level 10 Slumlord before Property Tycoon.

[G'day Mate]

Hmmm, the building inspection report has come back quite bad. I've got until midnight tomorrow (32 hours) to decide whether or not to jump out of the contract. The problems are:

- The foundation has a (small) crack all the way through it
- The firewall between it and the adjoining property sucks
- There are termites in a retaining wall between this house and the neighbours
- The roof has shifted and will continue to shift

I wasn't there for it so I sent my parents and partner. Mum and dad seem to think "get out", I'm not sure what my partner thinks yet but I suspect she's emotionally invested in it (as am I). As it turns out my sister is an architect so she's trying to line up an engineer to have a look.

[thesameguy]

Man, #1-3 sound not so terrible, things that be dealt with reasonably even if they might cause you to revise your offer.

#4 sounds bad. I don't actually know what a "shifting roof" is, but anything dealing with a roof means thousands of dollars.

Swing a VERY low ball at them and see if they go for it?

[G'day Mate]

I don't really know either - it's all Greek to me.

The current status is that I have made an offer which the vendor has accepted, but I can simply withdraw it during this "cooling off" period.

I'm pretty much stretched to the limit budget-wise on this one, so fixing these problems straight away will be difficult for me.

[Yeti]

I'm currently on the hunt for a hause, but I've got something extremely specific in mind.

Several neighborhoods in this town are made up of tiny post-war cottages that all follow a similar floor plan. One bedroom, one bath, about 5-600 sq. ft, no basement, tiny utility room for laundry/mechanicals, nothing but a wall furnace for heat (literally a furnace in the wall that heats one room and leaves the rest of the house freezing) wood construction, etc.

Here's one priced at much more than they usually go for because it's on a double lot:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...=51&source=web

Since they're so worthless as family homes, most of them just belong to landlords. One property investment entity in town owns about half of them (and calls us when their heat is out).

(yes, I live in a dump of a town with no property values to speak of)

One just needs to come up for sale :x Preferably not on a big corner lot though.

Once I have one, it'll be on me to install a proper split system and ductwork to heat/cool the joint, re-do the plumbing in pex, insulate the place, knock the chimney down below the roofline and patch the roof, install an electric water heater, etc. Not very hard, especially in a shack like that. Me being able to get furnaces/AC's/water heaters/pretty much everything at wholesale cost helps. Would be a very efficient house by the time I was done with it.

And I will pull a permit for all of that...promise.

Perfect home for the single cheapskate.

[thesameguy]

I don't really know either - it's all Greek to me.

The current status is that I have made an offer which the vendor has accepted, but I can simply withdraw it during this "cooling off" period.

I'm pretty much stretched to the limit budget-wise on this one, so fixing these problems straight away will be difficult for me.

I would get a quick & dirty quote on repairing all of the items and then revise your offer to deduct 80-120% of the cost of the repairs. If they go for it, hey great, if not, you've lost nothing. Now that the owners know there are actual problems with their house, they may be more flexible on the price. You can then either address the issues right away with the savings, or endure them for a little while as you recuperate financially.

I think major hole in that plan is really the foundation. Foundation cracks are not unheard of and aren't necessarily end of the world scenarios, but they totally can be. Unfortunately since the issue was not disclosed to you, chances are the owners didn't know about it and haven't been monitoring it. If the foundation was poured and then cracked it's probably not worth worrying about. If the crack appeared recently, perhaps as part of a shift in the ground below, then you may have a problem. You'd really need an expert to render an opinion on the severity and potential remedial measures to know anything. The things I would immediately be concerned about is whether the foundation crack resulted from a shift that also damaged the roof, and whether those termites might use the crack do gain access to the house. Neither of those sound like win.

Of course, if you don't *need* to buy a house now, there is no shame in just walking away and finding a place that suits you better. If you found one place that works, you'll find another.